The Future of Operational Forecasting has Landed in Australia

Recently, the Itron Forecasting Team was provided with the opportunity to develop a forecasting framework to support a new market mechanism that Australia is evaluating for growing and managing distributed energy resources (DER), particularly solar PV generation and battery storage. Despite what appears to be a rather daunting challenge of encouraging significant investment in distributed generation while at the same time not having the low-voltage grid burn to the ground, Australia is testing a rather clever market solution. This solution encourages consumers to invest in distributed generation and battery storage, while simultaneously eliminating the need for centralized control of all those generation and battery storage units. The market establishes a process where DER owners are financially incented to supply local energy and support services. The twist is that this market must act within the technical limits of the low-voltage network, thereby ensuring that the backflow of embedded generation, which has led to failures in the past, will be avoided in the future. At the heart of this solution is the concept of Dynamic Operating Envelopes. Read more about the role of operational forecasting in developing these critical Dynamic Operating Envelopes from the forecasting section of our website.