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Solar Microgrid in South Australia

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Earlier this year we reported about LO3 energy setting up Park Slope in Brooklyn with a Solar microgrid, using blockchain technology – and now they are bringing this project to South Australia under the name of TransActive Grid.

Solar Microgrid – how does it work?

TransActive - Solar Microgrid
TransActive – Solar Microgrid (source: Yates Facebook)

LO3 Energy (who set up business in Australia last year after success in the US), will be partnering with Yates Electrical Services to offer up to 6MW of ‘distributed soar generation’ via blockchain technology – effectively taking a big step towards a full-scale transactive energy market independent of the current grid – one where consumers are able to set the price they’re willing to pay for renewable energy, rather than being ‘stuck’ to the current grid system. This is all underpinned by the blockchain – which allows a decentralised, secure, p2p marketplace to function. If you want more technical details there’s a great paper on the MIT website entitled ‘Blockchain Applications to Solar Panel Energy: Landscape Analysis’.

According to RenewEconomy, the 6MW of solar energy will be built by Redmud Green Energy with the investment money being put up by Chinese backers. Yates gave an example to One Step Off The Grid in an interview earlier this week – where a local irrigator installed solar and was able to create some massive savings: “He was paying between 25-30c/kWh for his electricity, and now we can give him a fixed rate of around 7.5c/kWh. And not only can he save on his electricity consumption, but he can can sell his excess solar if he wants to.”

Belinda Kinkead, director of LO3’s Australian operations, was quoted on the Yates Facebook page as saying: “This is a significant agreement and shows there is great interest in the concept of putting energy choice in the hands of consumers.” Yates say that the project has the potential to open up over 1,000 residences and businesses in South Australia (in the Riverlands) to operate on the LO3 microgrid. With the rapidly rising cost of electricity and huge increases in both blockchain and renewable technology over the past few years, it’ll be exciting to see how this test goes and how much LO3 are able to grow it over the coming years.

 

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Microgrid in NYC using blockchain technology launched.

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Some interesting news out of Brooklyn this week as a group of residents and local businesses have banded together to create their own ‘microgrid’ – powered by the exciting new technology known as the blockchain.

Solar Microgrid

Siemens Digital Grid Division have set up the Park Slope area of Brooklyn with a full physical microgrid which includes battery storage, converters, control systems, and smart meters. The microgrid involves decentralised distributed energy generation and is able to exist and function completely outside the conventional regional power grid. Theoretically this could work for entire cities who would be able to use their own energy for residents, and even make money by selling it back to the central grid if required.

Administration is also quite simple (this is a bit of a relative term but when you consider the inherent challenges of such a system it is a very neat fit) – this microgrid technology is powered by the cheap to run and impossible to forge Blockchain – which is also used for decentralised currencies such as Bitcoin. The Park Slope blockchain platform has been set up and is being managed by LO3 Energy.

LO3 Energy Microgrid Brooklyn
LO3 Energy

About the blockchain

LO3 Energy will be using the blockchain to run what they call a “TransActive Grid” – which ensures each energy transaction is securely timestamped. This allows every movement of energy, however small, to be securely documented and applied to the correct account. The energy will be purchasable under an auction agreement where one of the ~50 homeowners/businesses are able to set a maximum price per kWh and receive energy accordingly. Lithium Ion energy storage will back up the microgrid in situations where there isn’t enough power being generated. In the event of no energy storage being available they are also connected to the main energy grid where they’re able to feed and receive power at general rates.

Potential further application of blockchain technology in the solar industry

The Park Slope project’s goal is to have 1,000 participants by next year – with a commensurate increase in the amount of battery storage and solar PV systems. LO3 Energy were quoted as saying they hope to make it possible “to establish a self-sufficient power supply for the microgrid in the event of a city-wide blackout’. It’ll be interesting to see how much power they’re able to generate, how much the average price per kWh ends up being, how much they still need to buy from the grid (or how much they make selling excess back in peak times). There are lots of variables which will help us see how viable this is with the current cost of PV solar and energy storage, and how well it will complement the existing grid.

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