Energy, The Grid and Battery Storage: The Australian Power Grid
Part 2 of 4
By Randall Pearce
Australia’s power grid has the following main component bodies:
Generators, who generate electricity using fossil fuels (eg coal or natural gas) or from renewables (solar, wind, hydro, biomass energy). Examples of generator companies are AGL, Origin Energy, Alinta.
Distributors, or Distributed Network Service Providers (DNSPs), own and manage transmission lines, substations, transformers, control systems to maintain voltage and frequency of the alternating current (50 Hertz, or cycles per second), distribution substations and local powerlines which distribute energy to business and household premises. They also measure the amount of energy delivered to or exported from individual premises, using smart meters. Examples of DNSP’s are Jemena, Powercor, Ausnet, United Energy. Each Distributor manages assets within an allocated area of the state, so they don’t actually compete with one another. Each one has their own administration and strategy of dealing with their infrastructure assets.
Retailers, who buy energy (fossil or renewable) from the generators and sell it to consumers, via the grid infrastructure of the distributors. They also buy energy exported by consumers. Retailer examples include Diamond Energy, Momentum Energy, Energy Locals and Powershop, to name a few.
Consumers are the premises (domestic, commercial & industrial) that import electrical energy from the grid or export it back to the grid if they generate power using solar panels, or have it stored in batteries.
As well as the continuing trend of domestic solar PV generation, there is now a rapidly accelerating trend for municipal, commercial and industrial businesses to place solar PV systems on the roof of their buildings to offset daytime consumption. The installation of large solar arrays can help to reduce electricity imports, as well as the annual peak demand charges imposed on business consumers. In Banyule, roughly half the schools now have solar PV systems installed, which have been paying for themselves in around 5 years.
