Monash Smart Energy City: Creating Grid Interactive Precincts

ARENA Insights Forum

25th June 2019

• Australia’s largest University

• Ranked in top 1% globally

• 150 buildings across 4 domestic campuses across Victoria

• Annual electricity consumption close to 100 GWh

+138countries

+€3.500 million in revenues

43.000professionals

234 M$R&D

Net Zero Emissions - Implementation Plan

ENERGY EFFICIENCY

CAMPUS

ELECTRIFICATION

ON-SITE

RENEWABLES

Reduce energy

Consumption

Lighting

Façade

Appliances

Thermal Plant

Bldg Optimisation

OFF-SITERENEWABLES

Electricity becomes

our total energy

Consumption

Heat pumps

replace gas boilers

Thermal Precincts

Power Purchase

Agreement

NET ZERO READY

BUILDINGS

Net zero ready

buildings

All electric

High performance

building envelope

Maximise on-site

solar generation

Rooftop solar PV

Solar thermal

Purchase off-site

renewable energy

INTELLIGENT

ENERGY NETWORK

Controls

Micro-grid

Battery Storage

OFFSETRESIDUALEMISSIONS

Offset residual

Emissions

Green Power

Carbon offsets

The Monash Microgrid: creating grid-interactive precincts

Microgrid

Electricity

Market

Operator

Microgrid Phase 1

• Private embedded network

• ~20 Buildings with diverse

energy load profiles

Commercial

Offices

Teaching

Residential Appts

Retail

Net Zero Smart Building

• 1.5 MW solar

• EV charging

• 1MWh battery

• 3.5 MW peak demand

Microgrid Design

DER Integration

Active Grid Management

Transactive Energy Management

TEMAggregate

Orchestrate

Planning

Dispatch External

Internal

DER Integration Architecture

InverterMeter

Inverter Manager

Gateway

Inverter

Inverter Manager

Inverter

Inverter Manager

Inverter Manager

Field Controller

Monash IP

Li -ion Flow

Gateway

Network controller

Gateway

Active Grid Management Architecture

DISTRIBUTED PLATFORM

IoT data is processed by AGM in

PRISM, and the set points are

sent to traditional control systems

or directly to the network assets

through AGM.

Onesait.Node#1

Evaluate KPIs

Manage and control the grid

Provide reportsVisualise real-time data and warnings

Manage warnings

Capture and Process real-time data

Transport and share real-time data

Traditional Control Systems

IoT real-time Data

Set points; Operation Instruction

Edge Sensing Devices

Microgrid Transactive Energy Management Architecture

Flexible DER Transactive Energy Management Markets

PV Controller & Inverter

Battery Controller & Inverter

Building Control System

Orchestrator

Planner

Flex DERController

Flex DERController

Flex DERController

Internal Markets

Tariff Optimisation etc

Demand Response etc

External Markets

Aggregator

Microgrid Edge Cloud Cloud

Progress to date

• Indra’s Active Grid Management System installed

and integrated

• Data being received from DER with deployed

Node#1 devices

• Use cases planned for M1:

• Remotely control voltage reference set-

point of a PV cluster inverter

• Design scenarios for the building energy

storage for demand response

• Test speed of response of sending a

control function order from the centralised

components of AGM and receiving a

feedback from one of the Node#1

connected to a solar PV system and

battery

• TEM platform preliminary design completed

• Initial evaluation using the USEF

• Resources appointed for TEM development

sprints

• Software development team

• Market rules and algorithm development

team

Lessons learned to date

Consult early and often with DNSP

The tech is ahead of internal

processes and governance

This is primarily an

IT integration problem

Building flexibility isn’t as simple as

flipping a switch

What’s coming up

• Assessment of cybersecurity

• Integration of AGM with TEM

• Integration of Node#1 with Building Control

System

• Complete integration of remaining DER

• EV charging station

• Remaining buildings and PV

• Development of building flexibility strategy

• Customer engagement

• Flexibility strategy

• Work on Alpha version of TEM to commence July

• Internal orchestration by April 2020

• Market interactive TEM by October 2020

Scott FerraroProgram Director, Net Zero InitiativeBuilding and Properties Division | Monash University

M: +614 0956 7007E: scott.ferraro@monash.eduW: monash.edu/net-zero-initiative