This report was produced by social research teams led by University of Tasmania and other research partners and forms part of a broader project examining customer responses to the Project Symphony pilot and perceptions and experiences of virtual power plants.
Report extract
The WA community is installing rooftop solar at unprecedented rates. With one in three households in the SWIS already having a rooftop solar PV system, and over 3,000 households adding a new system each month, customers with DER are already enjoying the benefits of lower electricity bills while contributing to de-carbonising the power system.
However, the high penetration of DER, particularly rooftop solar, can pose a significant risk to power system stability, for example at times of low system demand in an isolated network such as the South West Interconnected System (SWIS). In response, the WA Government released the DER Roadmap1 of which Project Symphony is a key DER Roadmap action. One of the Project’s working hypotheses is that DER can provide cheaper, lower carbon outcomes by providing energy markets with services and then sharing most of the value back to customers.
The Project Symphony Social (customer) Research Report was conducted by The University of Tasmania (UTAS) with Synergy as the customer facing electricity retailer of the pilot, and with contributions from the Australian National University. The report was conducted on behalf of Project Symphony’s project partners, Western Power, Synergy, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) and Energy Policy WA (EPWA).
The Social Research Report has provided project partners with an understanding of customer responses to the constructs of the Project Symphony pilot. Pleasingly, the way the research was conducted enabled some findings to be incorporated during the pilot itself.
