I've given a couple of talks recently and would be happy to organise one like this for Venus Bay. They are about increasing our community understanding of rooftop solar - not only what we have now but where we're headed and where we need to be headed.
Here is a quick summary of each talk and link to the recording:
Solar Homes for Heyfield (7th Sept 2021)
Heyfield, like Venus Bay, is exploring opportunities for a microgrid. They are similar sized towns but with completely different load profiles. Heyfield's economy is based on dairy and timber. It has a broad hinterland with many outlying residences and farms that rely on the services Heyfield offers. Venus Bay's economy is tourism with a large influx of visitors during the holidays and many residents who only visit for part of the year.
In my presentation I give a brief recap of the Heyfield microgrid project. The microgrid project will make more sense if all the homes are 'microgrid ready' so we will be starting the modelling by looking at the energy efficiency options and thinking about the extent to which we can make loads in households and businesses flexible and controllable. The data I use in the presentation starts to show the challenge we face in matching supply (when it is solar) to demand - and I talk about lighting, appliances, hot water, electric vehicles and pool pumps in my examples.
How will your neighbourhood share energy? for Phillip Island (6th Nov 2021)
Thanks to Totally Renewable Phillip Island for the invitation to talk. There are only small amounts of information online about the island's battery project but as the co-design process progresses we will hear more about the energy sharing arrangements that come to be considered.
This session started with a group discussion about our energy system in future. Short term goals, like local use of local energy for community resilience and reduced blackouts, were peppered with big social change ambitions:
- Free energy
- Repairable appliances and a real circular economy - getting away from the throw away society
- Renovation and upgrading of all our building stock
- Local economics thriving based on local energy supply
The importance of a rapid energy transition in tackling climate change is the unstated assumption that all of us shared.
My talk introduced my PhD topic briefly. I used South Australia of my example of quickly arriving at enough solar if we don't put other initiatives in place to shift our loads and use storage. South Australia has run on 100% rooftop solar 5 times in the past 5 weeks (albeit briefly). And I talked about the big options for any community to incorporate into energy planning:
- energy efficiency
- preparing for new loads like getting off gas and electric vehicle loads
- diversifying generation beyond solar
- storage
- shifting loads
- controlling loads
I talked about the different costs we are exposed to that start to define the value we receive from local energy. Phillip Island, like Heyfield, has different levels at which the sharing of energy might occur
- the low voltage / street level where pole-mounted batteries might help,
- the medium voltage level where the upcoming battery at the Zone Substation will assist,
- a higher level again would change the structure of supply between Phillip Island and Wonthaggi zone substations.
Finally I gave a brief run through of the way different business models are being, or could be, used in electricity costs.
- Copy of Slides
- And a link to the video
I would love feedback below on what you'd like to hear more about,
Heather