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Postcard from Australia: Melbourne
Postcard from Melbourne Helen Poulter, IGov Team, 2nd March 2018 One issue that is being spoken about repeatedly here is how the governance structure of the National Electricity Market (NEM) of the Eastern States of Australia is slowing electricity system transformation. Melbourne is the capital city of the State of Victoria. Victoria is different from the other States in the NEM because for a number of reasons it is able to make quicker governance changes. It is this inability of all the other Australian states to move quickly within the NEM which may see the current mass
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Global Insights: 20th February 2018
Australia See our latest series on postcards from Australia, so far from Sydney and Canberra. Coming soon…Melbourne. Europe Share of German citizen renewable energy shrinking A few weeks ago we reported an infographic which indicated that up to 2016 citizens (households and farms) accounted for 42.5% of renewables ownership in Germany. At the same time the ‘Big Four’ German utilities, who used to cover 75% of the market, only account for 5.4%. Whilst at first glance these figures are impressive energytransition.org argue that these statistics don’t show how recent changes to renewable energy support is making community or citizen ownership
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Global Insights: 13th February 2018
Australia See our latest series on postcards from Australia, so far from Sydney and Canberra Europe European Commission approves capacity markets in six Member States The European Commission has given State Aid clearance for capacity markets in Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Poland, covering more than half the EU’s population. This follows Commission approval for capacity markets in Great Britain in 2014, and also in France and the Irish Single Electricity Market. The design of these most recent capacity markets differ: strategic reserves in Belgium and Germany, market-wide mechanisms (i.e. like the UK’s own
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Postcard from Australia: Canberra
Postcard from Canberra Helen Poulter, IGov Team, 12th February 2018 Last week I reported that the uptake of solar PV and storage was not completely due to the economic benefits that it can produce, but also to the idea of owning new technology. This idea – that Australians embrace new technology – was confirmed again this week, and although the FiT rate initially offered was extremely generous, it was also this willingness to try something new that led to the world-leading percentage of household ownership. Being in Canberra there has to be a political angle. When
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Global Insights: 6th February 2018
Australia South Australia’s state premier has just announced a plan to create a network of 50,000 home solar systems backed by Tesla Powerwall batteries, in effect creating one of the world’s largest virtual power plants. The project will begin with a trial on 1,100 public housing homes which will have a 5kW PV system with a 13.5kWh Tesla Powerwall battery. Government grants will provide installations free of charge to homeowners. Europe German renewables growth – when is the grid ‘full’? As a new governing coalition takes shape in Germany it appears that the ambitions of the
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Postcard from Australia: Sydney
Postcard from Sydney Helen Poulter, IGov Team, 5th February 2018 This postcard from Australia, is the first of a series which is being undertaken during Phase 1 of research for my PhD looking at the role that adaptive governance will play in enabling energy system transformation. At the end of my stay, I will provide an overview postcard of energy in Australia. In between then and now, I will send postcards from different States and will also provide a comparison between the States in future postcards. This initial postcard is written after being in Sydney
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Presentation: The Market Implications of the Brooklyn Micro Grid
The Market Implications of the Brooklyn Micro Grid From: Catherine Mitchell Presentation to: I-REMB Advisory Board, Copenhagen 30th Jan 2018 Summary Overview of the Brookyn Microgrid and LO3energy Transactive energy and blockchain Implications for the market and energy provision Challenges and realities Future markets and regulator innovation This presentation can be found here: I-REMB AG Jan
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Global Insights: 31st January 2018
Australia Household grid services In a blog from Reposit Power, a company providing storage controllers on PV homes and a market mechanism to enable householder access to be rewarded for providing grid services, they set out how their customers responded to recent grid problems in the South Australia. Looking a two recent incidents when the grid could not cope with demand, they show how their household customers in Victoria and South Australia stepped in to prop the electricity grid up, through the sale of the stored energy in their solar batteries. This is shown over
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New Thinking: The RIIO-ED1 Price review – Just how successful is RIIO – update
RIIO Update Helen Poulter, IGov Team, 23rd January 2018 In June 2017 IGov reported on the RIIO ED1 price control. This was the first annual review by Ofgem of the RIIO ED1 price control – effected after the companies had been working to it for one year. The blog concluded that although there were minor improvements this new regulation strategy did not incentivise the DNO’s to do things differently. In July 2017, a report by Citizens Advice highlighted the forecasted RoRE (return on regulatory equity) – the financial return achieved by investors during the price
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Global Insights: 23rd January 2018
AUSTRALIA ‘Reliable Coal’ breaks again – and has to be saved by renewables and storage In another heatwave last week – with temperatures reaching 40C+ the 1100MW Loy Yang B coal generator in Victoria tripped, losing 530MW of capacity and sending prices in the energy market to $12,900MWh in Victoria and $14,200MWh in South Australia. This is the thirteenth time a coal generator has failed this summer causing commentators to question whether they can be relied upon for peak generation. The good news for both industrial storage and domestic solar and storage is that they
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