News
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Global Insights: 30th October 2018
AUSTRALIA SA officially opens storage scheme South Australia (SA) has officially opened its subsidy scheme for household storage. The $200m scheme will allow households to access grants and low-interest finance to purchase battery storage and rooftop PV. The battery storage loans are on a sliding scale dependent on the amount of storage purchased. The SA government have also prioritised a nine week window for batteries that are built in SA to encourage households to buy from local manufacturers. Currently SA is leading the world in percentage of households with rooftop PV which provides up to
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Women and Energy in Academia
Women and Energy in Academia Catherine Mitchell, 29th October 2018 The recent BIEE Summer Conference had a morning breakfast session on women and energy (organised by Karoline Rogge of Sussex), and the talks can be listened to here. We speakers were all asked to answer three questions in relation to our experiences: Juliet Davenport talked about the importance of certain types of business management models; Vivien Geard from BEIS talked about public service; I concentrated on what it has been like for me in academia; and Barbara Vest from Energy UK, ably, chaired it. Since
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Blog 1 of Name, Form and Function of Distribution Entities
Name, Form and Function of Distribution Entities – clarity and agreement needed across the world Catherine Mitchell – IGov Team, 19th October 2018 The need for the traditional 3 part utility function of planning, operations and market administration broadly continues within the distribution area, even in this changing energy world, but changing technology, public policy goals, user preferences and business models are challenging whether the traditional distribution utility should still be responsible for each segment; whether the traditional role for the utility within those segments is also still necessary; and whether there are new functions
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Global Insights: 16th October 2018
AUSTRALIA Monash University to go 100% renewable Monash University in Melbourne, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and Indra Australia have announced a microgrid trial that will test the ability of the Monash University Clayton campus’ embedded network to become 100% renewable. The Au$7.1 million trial has received Au$2.97 million from ARENA and the results from the trial will be used to inform the Distributed Energy Integration Program (DEIP) announced last week and to help other universities to transition towards using renewable energy. The microgrid will use up to 1MW of rooftop solar, 20 buildings
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Submission: Ofgem electricity network access and charging
Ofgem Consultation: Getting more out of our electricity networks through reforming access and forward-looking charging arrangements Rachel Bray and Catherine Mitchell Energy Policy Group, University of Exeter Summary Running the energy system costs society and the customer a certain total amount every year. That sum of that cost is currently derived in a particular way – transmission costs, distribution costs, including charging costs, wholesale market costs etc – and via a certain methodology and regulatory mechanism and then paid for via customer bills before finally being reimbursed to different parts of the energy system by suppliers
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Global Insights: 9th October 2018
AUSTRALIA ARENA announces whole system DER initiative The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) have announced an initiative this week that will see the energy industry institutions come together to harness the potential of distributed energy resources (DER), the behind the meter resources such as solar PV and storage. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and ARENA have forecasted that up to 45% of Australia’s generation could come from DER by 2050. In order to maximise the value of DER for all energy user a multi body initiative, the Distributed Energy Integration Program (DEIP),
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Submission: BEIS Consultation on the Feed-in-Tariffs Scheme
BEIS Consultation on the Feed-in-Tariffs Scheme Helen Poulter, Catherine Mitchell and Rachel Bray Energy Policy Group, University of Exeter Summary The University of Exeter Energy Policy Group (EPG) welcomes the opportunity to comment on the closure of the Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) scheme. We do not support the closure of the FiT scheme. We have 6 main concerns: 1) The small scale FiT has been a way for communities, small companies and housholders to become involved in the transformation from the ‘dirty’ to the ‘clean’ energy system. Delivering the Committee of Climate Change greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions
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Global Insights: 2nd October 2018
AUSTRALIA New ruling for generators to bring down costs for consumers The Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) announced a new ruling for technical standards for generators this week. The new ruling sets local technical performance standards for generators who wish to connect to the grid. Currently there is a one size fits all approach for performance standards in voltage and frequency regulation. The new ruling would allow the connection to be based on the system requirements for the local area, e.g. if there is already ample capability for voltage control this would not be required
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New Thinking: The people’s energy networks?
The people’s energy networks? Labour’s new ownership proposals Matthew Lockwood, IGov Team, 27th September 2018 To coincide with its annual conference, the Labour Party has just launched a new environmental policy document, The Green Transformation. A key element of its proposals on energy is to bring ‘the UK’s energy transmission and distribution networks back into public ownership’. Much media debate has been on how that will be financed, which is obviously an important issue. Here, however, our focus is on what such a move would mean for the running of networks. Labour’s shadow Chancellor John
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Global Insights: 25th September 2018
AUSTRALIA AGL fails to report data and meet its emission targets in Victoria AGL, one of Australia’s largest energy companies, has come under fire from the Victorian Essential Services Commission (ESC) (the Victorian regulator) after failing to provide its 2017-18 performance report for energy retailing on time and failing to meet its emission offset levels. AGL stated that it was unable to provide the performance report due to limitations in their current reporting platform and the need to complete a ‘full rebuild’ of their reporting capability. This then pushed the ESC to suggest that there
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