<
https://reneweconomy.com.au/why-electricity-networks-need-to-understand-people-not-just-poles-and-wires/>
"For decades, electricity networks have planned the future grid by estimating
how people might use electricity.
Now, one of Australia’s biggest electrification trials is providing networks
with something new: detailed, real-world data on how households actually
electrify over time, rather than how models predict they might.
And that could fundamentally change how much infrastructure they need to build.
That’s one of the biggest insights for Endeavour Energy, the local network
operator, emerging from the Electrify 2515 project on the NSW south coast,
where around 500 households are progressively replacing gas appliances with
efficient electric alternatives, installing solar, batteries and smart energy
devices.
The project has so far generated more than one billion data points over 18
months, providing Endeavour with an unprecedented picture of how households
electrify, when they use electricity, and how their behaviour changes over
time.
For Colin Crisafulli, Endeavour Energy’s General Manager of Future Grid and
Asset Management, it’s the sort of information that should change the way
electricity networks think about the future grid.
For years critics have warned widespread electrification will overwhelm local
electricity networks and force billions of dollars to be spent on new poles and
wires. But Crisafulli told this week’s episode of the
SwitchedOn Australia
podcast the evidence collected so far points in a different direction.
“Everything we’ve seen is it absolutely will cope. If anything, it’s increased
our resolve around making sure that
how it copes is the smartest way, the
most efficient way, in making it cope.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
