Mapping Network Opportunities for Renewable Energy

Summary

The Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) will develop annually updated maps and make them freely available online.

Need

The absence of clear, consistent and timely data about network constraints, costs and potentially avoidable investment across the Australian National Electricity Market (NEM) has been a major obstacle to the development of renewable and other decentralised energy projects in Australia.

Developing a system that creates annually updated maps of network constraints for the entire NEM would assist renewable energy project developers target locations of the grid where renewable energy, energy storage and demand management can be a cost effective alternative to network augmentation.

Project innovation

The Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) will develop a standardised data protocol on network information and opportunities, supported by Network Service Providers in the NEM.

The Mapping Network Opportunities for Renewable Energy project will enhance ISF’s Dynamic Avoidable Network Cost Evaluation (DANCE) model to produce annual maps of network capacity and constraints, planned investment and the potential value of decentralised energy in electricity networks across the NEM, through a publicly accessible web portal.

Benefit

The project will:

• provide nationally consistent, annually updated and publicly accessible, online maps of electricity transmission and distribution network capacity and potential to reduce investment costs
• facilitate more rapid and efficient development of renewable energy, electricity storage, demand management and other decentralised energy resources
• assist in lowering electricity costs, raising network efficiency and energy productivity, and developing markets for renewable and decentralised energy
• increase public awareness and understanding of the opportunities for renewable energy in areas of network constraints.

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