NEV Power – Smartgrid developments.
It’s been a big 12 months for NEV Power.
Ausgrid AS4777 approval for and installation of the grid protection needed to increase the installed solar PV Village capacity beyond 30kw (initial approval was 430kw with an increase to 999kW under negotiation)
Purchase and installation of our community Hitachi ABB 470kwh battery. The battery is in the final stages of testing with Ausgrid sign-off expected by the end of 2022.
Over 300kw of residential solar installed and commissioned.
Renegotiation of the ARENA grant which achieved an additional $230k in investment from ARENA due to higher than anticipated grid connection and battery costs.
The installation of the battery was made more challenging due to state based covid lockdowns. However, the Darwin based engineer worked closely with our on-site electrician and member of the NEV Power team to commission the battery remotely. Milestone 4b of the ARENA grant was hinged on the battery installation, installation of over 300kwp of PV and having completed 50 house builds. This milestone has been delayed until Jan 2022 and this has been accepted by ARENA.
A large media event is being planned, likely for early 2022, to formally open the Community battery and it’s hoped a number of senior industry, government and media people will attend.
The final piece of the smart grid project is the smart controls. The team, supported by an external IT specialist embedded within the team, have made incredible headway, successfully prototyping a solution. These smart controls will provide house-level real-time data, responsive control of the PV inverters and provide the framework to make intelligent decisions regarding the battery such as saving power for (literally)a rainy day vs exporting to the grid. The smart grid controls will also allow us to move to time-of-use billing. A design has also been agreed with the NEV Water team to better manage the pumping equipment using the smart controls so as to maximise solar generated power and reduce the drain on the battery during key times.
The next 12 months will see us learn and fine tune the smart grid (technically and culturally) and deliver the knowledge sharing data to ARENA
November 2021