Wall with battery, inverter and EV charger

Aggregated Demand Response Program

Queensland is experiencing rapid growth in the connection of customer energy resources (CER), including solar PV, battery energy storage system connections and electric vehicles. As the gap in network peak and minimum demand continues to widen, the impact of CERs on our network increases.

Coordinating the use of CERs allows us to continue to run our network efficiently, so we are we are seeking opportunities to coordinate CER in a manner that suits customer needs while minimising network impacts. In the long term, this will help reduce network expenditure on new assets to support ongoing CER connections and ultimately improve network utilisation and affordability.

The opportunity

We would like to partner with aggregators (retailers and other market service providers) who have the capability to flex customers’ generation, storage and loads to mitigate network peak and minimum demand.

Aggregators with a firm generation or load portfolio of over 200kVA on the Low Voltage network (commercial, residential or mixed) are eligible.

Designed with aggregators in mind, the Aggregated Demand Response Program (ADRP) is an initial framework to procure demand flexibility to trial and prepare for participation in a future broader market. The ADRP will allow us to procure flexible demand to respond to both peak and minimum demand localised network issues.

The ADRP will operate under a network service agreement. This agreement will outline:

  • Any relevant payment for joining the program, and for responding to network events
  • Our network areas likely to require demand response in the upcoming 2-3 years
  • How we will share information
  • The processes for calling events
  • Who has responsibility for customer management
  • How we calculate event response, i.e. measurement and verification
  • Any other program requirements.

The ADRP will not initially require systems integration with our Distributed Energy Resources Management System (DERMS), though this is expected to evolve as the program matures.

If you have a demand flexibility solution that you think suits the requirements above, or you think we can improve access to the network value under this program, please contact us on demandmanagement@ergon.com.au.