Dave Keppel Innovation Award 2021
Winner: Re/volve Energy for Energy Management & Billing Solution
To grow the adoption of DER, the industry must realise scale. Our built environment is moving to high density to realise economies of scale, and so must the DER.
Re/volve Energy’s energy management and billing solution provides a way for multi-tenancy developments to utilise centralised infrastructure to reduce both capital and operational costs, helping to realise a new model of DER.
In our view it is important to consider the demand side technologies that are commonly used and can be put to work to change demand profiles helping us to make better use of our existing infrastructure and maximise the value of onsite generation and time of use pricing.
DER is a collection of technology that represents both energy generation, storage and demand flexibility and incorporates a wide range of technologies including:
- Photovoltaics.
- Battery storage.
- Hot water systems, in particular centralised.
- EV charging and vehicle to grid.
- Controllable demand such as space heating loads.
Our solution consists of four key components that can help realise the value of DER:
- Demand control.
- Operational monitoring.
- Visualisation.
- Billing.
Re/volve Energy’s billing system utilizes the same operational data that is used for our dashboard services. The system:
- Records the metered use such as electricity, hot water and cold water use of each apartment at the chosen time interval.
- Stores all the data in the cloud.
- Allows tariffs to be recorded and managed centrally. Including time of use tariffs for any service.
- Automatically generates invoices monthly for the services. Invoices are pushed into Xero where they can be issued and managed. Payment can be collected through numerous services that work with Xero including credit card payment, and direct debit.
- Allows the use of solar PV generation by tenancy to be determined on a half hourly basis and billed at a separate rate to grid electricity to incentivise residents to change their usage patterns.
Where has our service been used?
So far this service has been rolled out on two sites.
- Aroha Apartments in Sandringham, where it is used for billing of electricity (both from PV and grid), hot water, cold water, standing monthly charges (including internet and parking), and adhoc usage such as the laundry, and guest room.
- Cohaus in Grey Lynn. Where the service is used for demand control, operational monitoring and visualisation, billing of electricity (both from PV and grid), hot water, and cold water.
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More about Revolve Energy
Runner-up: Infratec for Project BOOST
From June 2020 to March 2021, Infratec worked to develop and test first of a kind services for battery energy storage systems (BESS) in New Zealand (listed in response to question 3).
The research project was delivered using Alpine Energy’s BESS in Timaru. To enable the trial Transpower provided its enhanced distributed energy resource management system (DERMS), FlexPointTM in collaboration with Infratec. FlexPointTM allows Transpower to call, monitor M&V and manage distributed energy resources (DER) of all types across New Zealand in support of The National Grid.
The technical apparatus used to deliver the work included:
- A 90kW/144kWh Alpine Energy BESS
- A customised PLC and high-resolution meter installed and managed by Infratec.
- A OpenADR certified GRIDLink remote terminal unit (RTU) provided by Transpower that allowed fully automated secure, demand response (DR) communications between FlexPoint and the BESS.
Transpower’s FlexPoint sent event commands and received real-time information, such as state of charge and frequency, via a secure internet connection to GRIDLink ADR.
The project was a collaboration with expert services provided by Infratec and contractors PowerItFWD and Query. Transpower provided enhancements to its platforms throughout the project as knowledge was gained.
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More about Infratec
