EDB Decarbonisation Challenge pilot results with Future Grid

Powerco has been working with Australia-based Future Grid after the company was named one of the winners in Ara Ake’s electricity distribution Decarbonisation Challenge in November 2022.

General Manager Business Strategy Ryno Verster, who represented Powerco on a panel of judges from other New Zealand electricity distribution businesses (EDBs) involved in the challenge, says Powerco is excited about what this country’s EDBs can learn from Future Grid’s model.

Future Grid uses data from smart meters, IoT (internet of things) and increasing DER (distributed energy resources) inverters to create real-time power quality visibility to understand the behaviour and impacts of DER on the low-voltage (LV) distribution grid. It already works with Australian EDBs, along with New Zealand’s WEL Networks.

Both Powerco and Wellington Electricity chose to work with Future Grid as part of the Decarbonisation Challenge and share the findings with fellow lines companies. The Decarbonisation Challenge centred around meaningful collaboration to solve energy-related challenges.

The pilot involved running power quality (voltage) data from metering equipment and customer consumption data from electricity retailers through Future Grid’s platform, alongside Powerco data. 

“Understanding the LV network will be key to facilitating decarbonisation in New Zealand. A lot of the innovation and capability of customers to generate, store and participate in the energy market all happens behind the meter, which is LV. That’s something that traditionally networks have had little visibility of," says Ryno Verster, Powerco DSO (Distributed System Operator) Programme Director says.

“We see these types of trials benefiting the New Zealand electricity industry as a whole."

A reason why Powerco chose to work with Future Grid is that its model complements technology Powerco already uses to monitor its LV network.

Learnings and insights

Powerco and Future Grid partnered to conduct a demonstration pilot to understand the value in processing and interpreting smart meter data to visualise the LV network and how it operates. 

Powerco was provided the Future Grid LV network management software, Compass™, scoped to cover a small section of their network, consisting of approximately 7,000 ICPs (customer connections, equivalent to 2% network coverage). 

Powerco’s key objectives for the project were to:

  • Trial the Future Grid platform in Powerco's systems
  • Test Powerco’s readiness to integrate with LV modelling platforms
  • Demonstrate the value of integrating LV measurements from distribution transformers
  • Demonstrate the value of utilising network data from smart meters for network planning and operations

Future Grid and Powerco were able to successfully achieve the key objectives of the pilot with the teams collaborating to identify several high priority use cases where Compass™ added value. 

The use cases identified and demonstrated included:

  • Identification of PV solar installations (and other DER)
  • Identification of network typology (phasing and network performance)
  • Visualisation of LV load flows and constraints
  • Detection of faults and outages (including drop-out fuses)

A number of other use cases were deemed feasible but weren’t demonstrated during the pilot. These were the detection of broken neutrals, network connectivity, transformer utilisation and EV charger detection (the latter two not being demonstrated due to insufficient consumption data availability at the time). Powerco has since acquired access to all available historic (past 5 years) and future consumption data (provided monthly) from the two Metering Equipment Providers (MEPs) on its footprint. 

The pilot has demonstrated to Powerco that there is a clear case for the development of a digital twin of its LV network, in order to recreate and access past events, as well as plan and test future scenarios on the network*. 

Ultimately, this work has shown that LV visibility and analytics platforms like Future Grid’s Compass™ will be required by Powerco in the future. Powerco sees the value in scaling up a LV platform trial to further grow internal understanding of this new way of working.

*A digital twin is a virtual simulation which reflects the real-world characteristics of a complex system.

Click the link for the full Ara Ake EDB Challenge: Learnings and Insights Report.