‘Dumb’ roof top solar a threat to network stability, says Greensync founder
Australia risks losing control of roof top solar if it doesn’t halt the installation of “dumb” technology, says Phil Blythe.
Australia is in danger of losing control of one of its biggest and fastest growing generators — roof top solar — if regulators and network operators don’t halt the installation of “dumb” technology that can’t be used to stabilise the grid.
Greensync energy founder Phil Blythe said that a series of incentives to direct consumer behaviour needed to be developed to avoid the risk that regulators would have to switch off rooftop solar to ensure the safety of the networks.
Soaring electricity prices have spurred record installations of rooftop solar, with almost 1.8 million installations in place by the end of 2017, generating 6,401MW of electricity. But regulators are growing increasingly concerned that rooftop solar will destabilise the grid unless it is backed by smart technology that can be controlled by regulators and network operators.
“The real issue is that we don’t have control over our solar resources,” Mr Blythe told the Energy Networks Australia conference in Sydney.
“We have got 1.7 million installations out there on rooftops that we can’t control
“Now if you take that out a couple of years it will be 2.5 million — that is going to be a point where we have lost control over a significant portion of our generation fleet.”
Mr Blythe, whose company provides software to manage electricity grids, said most solar panels were backed by “dumb” inverters that could not be harnessed to the increasingly two-way traffic between households and electricity networks.
New installations needed to include smart devices that could be controlled by regulators and network operators.
ENA chief executive Andrew Dillon said the industry wanted to avoid a situation where regulators and network operators had to switch off roof solar generation, but admitted it was risk.
“That would be a worse case, that is what we are trying to avoid happening.”
High levels of low-cost generation from commercial wind and solar projects in states like South Australia has increasingly forced the market operator to intervene and order high-priced but less variable gas generators into the market and shut down renewable generation to ensure stability.
He said the industry needed to develop a system of incentives that would encourage people to shift load to the middle of the day when solar generation is at its peak.
That could include incentives to fill home batteries during the day or examples such as a Queensland scheme that encourages solar hot water generation to move from night time to daylight hours, creating a “solar sponge.”
Mr Dillon said price signals needed to be clear and simple, but strong enough to change consumer behaviour for the good of the network.
