Ausgrid supports future focused NEG

Australia’s largest electricity distributor Ausgrid today offered its support to the Energy Security Board (ESB) for a future-focused National Energy Guarantee (NEG), which aims to both reduce emissions and ensure the reliability of the electricity system at the lowest possible cost.

CEO Richard Gross said a well-designed NEG is important to ensuring a reliable and stable electricity sector that can also help Australia meet its international obligation to reduce emissions.

“We encourage the ESB to consider the factors motivating energy customers,” he said.

“As customers adopt new technologies that allow them to take control of their energy usage and support action on climate change, a decentralised yet integrated electricity system is emerging.

Mr Gross said over time, networks like Ausgrid would evolve to become the ‘platform’ responsible for matching the excess supply produced by a customer owned Distributed Energy Resource (DER) with the energy needs of their neighbours, enabling ‘peer-to-peer’ trading in electricity.

“As a new model of the electricity supply chain emerges, distribution networks like Ausgrid will be critical to enabling the multi-directional exchanges of energy required to maintain reliability and for the most value to be extracted from renewable sources of customer-owned generation.

“We look forward to supporting the ESB in designing a NEG that incorporates the role of distribution networks and delivers a more affordable, reliable and sustainable supply of electricity to customers.

“We share these priorities with our customers and we are aligning Ausgrid’s network investment and operating decisions accordingly.”

Ausgrid is keeping pace with the ongoing changes in the electricity market. In recent years, this has involved:

• Lowering the cost of connecting solar and batteries and reducing red tape
• Delivering a peak rebate program for business customers to refine demand management solutions from this important customer segment
• Investigating the ability of a grid battery to reduce network demand and optimise solar operation for customer benefits
• Implementing the innovative CoolSaver program where we partnered with 150 residential customers to reduce peak demand from air conditioners using new power saving technology
• Surveying residential and business customers about solar, batteries and energy efficiency to better understand their motivations and preferences for installing new technology and willingness to partner with Ausgrid to reduce demand
• Exploring innovative approaches to reducing demand from hot water systems
• Testing the charging infrastructure, vehicle performance, behaviour and grid impacts from electric vehicles
• Exploring the ability of residential batteries and fuel cells to reduce customer bills and network demand