Microgrids offer an exciting new model for farms to buy and sell power differently as well as better utilisation of on-site generation and local electricity networks. They may also have the added benefit of reducing grid losses as energy will be used more locally, leading to lower investment costs in infrastructure while increasing reliability. These benefits all have the potential to reduce energy costs and will be tested by the project. Ultimately, farmers could benefit from more stable network energy flows, increased network utilisation, more cost-effective uptake of distributed energy systems and reduced costs to provide a community-based source of local, affordable, low carbon energy.

The way energy is generated and consumed is rapidly changing, with customer-owned generation and storage expected to make up almost half of Australia’s entire electricity capacity by 2050. This project places our project partners and the agriculture sector at the forefront of energy generation innovation and better able to overcome ongoing reliability and affordability issues.

The project will establish four demonstration virtual microgrids in New South Wales and Queensland consisting of up to 50 real-time electricity meters which can be monitored on a single dashboard to determine feasibility of actual microgrids.

The virtual microgrids will test the following four overarching questions:

1. Can microgrids enhance the competitiveness of agricultural industries, particularly irrigation by optimising energy consumption and generation across multiple sites?
2. At what scale and in what locations could microgrids benefit agricultural enterprises, communities and energy networks?
3. How should microgrids in agricultural communities’ best be approached in relation to embedded solar generation, storage and energy sharing models such as Peer to Peer trading?
4. What are the benefits to local networks from understanding energy flows in real time, including the opportunity to stabilise networks and increase network utilisation?

Four case studies will be completed to test the concept in different scenarios:

1. Single enterprise
2. Edge of grid
3. Large-scale microgrid
4. One to be selected

The project will run from July 2020 until June 2022 with the following stages.

The Microgrids Project team have been hard at work rolling out the initial stages of the project. In October 2020 four sites were selected as project case studies, each reflecting one of the four microgrid archetypes:

• Single Enterprise: 1 participant in Pokolbin, NSW
• Edge of Grid: 1 participant in St George, QLD
• Large-scale Microgrid: 8 participants in the Pioneer Valley, QLD
• Anchor Host/Hybrid: 1 participant in Wee Waa, NSW

This project required a commitment of 50 installed meters; we have installed at least another 10 meters in recent months to provide the richest data set possible.

With meters installed, real-time data collection has commenced, feeding directly into a custom dashboard and real-time modelling tool. While 12 months of data is collected, the team is working with other stakeholders on related projects including a Virtual Power Plant (VPP), biodigester feasibility modelling, and other agricultural production data inputs.

We have surveyed our participating farmers, establishing a baseline of social, economic, and technical factors to identify our participants’ decision-making levers. This data will help us measure the change in understanding and appetite for smart grid tech over the course of the project.

As the project unfolds, we look forward to sharing data insights as well as lessons learned, best practices, and any other supporting resources which could be of benefit to our community.

The stages of the project are illustrated in the image below.

We aim to increase knowledge on the types of microgrids, how they may work, opportunities for agriculture and rural communities and what existing work is being done.