Ausgrid Managing Director George Maltabarow today welcomed news that Ausgrid had been selected as the winning Smart Grid, Smart Cities bid, saying it would lead to ground-breaking changes to the country’s energy industry.
Mr Maltabarow said the Federal Government funding would allow a commercial-scale smart grid to be rolled out across five sites in Sydney and the Hunter.
Building a smart grid on such a large scale will keep Australia at the forefront of energy technology. - Mr Maltabarow, Managing Director.
“This trial will showcase the future of electricity networks in Australia, including self-healing when faults and interruptions occur and greater customer control.
“New generation smart meters will be rolled out to 50,000 homes at five sites in Newcastle, Scone, the Sydney CBD, Ku-ring-gai and Newington. Around 15,000 households will become ‘smart homes’ to trial a new breed of inhouse displays and websites that track electricity and water use, costs and CO2 emissions,” he said.
“These homes will test remote control of appliances including air conditioners and innovative pricing packages to help reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.
“Households in Scone will become virtual green power stations in battery storage trials, allowing them to help power local streets.”
The rollout of 12,000 smart sensors across Ausgrid’s electricity network will be fast-tracked to allow earlier fault detection and repair, including self-healing of some faults.
“Renewable energy and battery storage trials will see power generated locally in buildings in Sydney’s CBD and Sydney City Council’s fleet of 20 electric vehicles will test battery storage and smart charging points,” he said.
“A second electric vehicle fleet will be tested and special charging stations built in public areas to test how electric cars can be charged from multiple locations on the grid.
The proposal was submitted to the Federal Government by Ausgrid in partnership with local councils across the Hunter and Sydney, some of the world’s largest IT and smart grid multinationals, water and energy utilities and Australia’s top research institutions.
“Winning the Smart Grid, Smart Cities bid is an exciting opportunity to expand our smart grid rollout even further, at a much faster rate and on a greater scale than we’ve seen.
“Ausgrid’s plan includes the trial of new technology to help test the National Broadband Network roll out,” Mr Maltabarow said.
Smart Grid Facts
What is a Smart Grid?
Building a smart grid involves transforming the traditional electricity network by adding a chain of new, smart technology. It includes smart sensors, new back-end IT systems, smart meters and a communications network.
Smart grids provide instant information about the network to make it more efficient and help reduce interruptions, support more renewable energy and gives households greater control over their energy use.
Ausgrid’s Smart Grid program
Ausgrid has been building a Smart Grid program since 2006:
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Building a new communications platform - Ausgrid has rolled out 800 kilometres of new fibre optic cables, installed hundreds of communications switches and deployed carrier-grade Internet Protocol (IP) technology to connect more than 200 key substations and depots. This telecommunications backbone is the foundation for a smart grid. It will provide many benefits including greater equipment monitoring and control, allowing better decision-making and earlier fault detection and repair.
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Installing smart monitoring devices to collect data - Ausgrid is rolling out 12,000 monitoring devices throughout its electricity distribution network. This data will allow Ausgrid to reduce outages through faster fault location and preventive maintenance and to work towards managing distributed energy sources such as solar and storage devices. The smart sensors will give Ausgrid an instant picture of the electricity network and how it is performing.
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Establishing back-end IT and business systems - New smart grid technologies require new back end systems and processes to be set up to convert the data into useful information for Ausgrid’s planners and for households. New back-end systems and process are continually being designed make a smart grid a reality.
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Rolling out smart meters and time-based pricing. Smart meters will be the gateway for managing energy use and carbon in the home. More than 4,000 smart meters with communications have been installed and about 200,000 with first generation smart meters have time-of-use billing.
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Building Australia’s First Smart Village and Smart Home – This two-year trial will help 1,000 households in Newington and Silverwater (NSW) reduce their utility bills and carbon impact. The homes are being connected to a smart grid featuring greater information and control, as well as other energy efficient sources. Households will see a minute-by-minute picture of their energy and water use, turn their appliances on and off remotely using iPhones and websites, and compare energy use through neighbourhood competitions. A Smart Home is also being fitted out in Newington to test the latest energy and water efficient appliances and how renewable energy interacts with the grid. Real-life tenants will live in the home rent free for 12 months to test the technology and share their experiences.
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Building a 4G wireless telecommunication network - This will allow crucial two-way communication with up to 2 million devices on the electricity grid. A smart grid needs a communications platform to bring all the real time data from substations and field devices back so IT systems can turn that data into useful information for planners, field staff and consumers.
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Rolling out smart sensors and analytical tools on the high voltage electricity network – This includes new smart equipment at zone substations and major transmission cables to allow better, more efficient management of power equipment and greater automation of the network.
Media contact: Ausgrid News Pager 02 9966 7985.