World’s Largest Virtual Power Plant Trial in South Australia - Doing Grid Power Differently AGL Energy’s delivery of what would be the world’s largest virtual power plant – in South Australia – looks set to come in “well ahead of schedule,” after the utility announced on Thursday that it had already sold out its first round of 150 connected battery storage systems, with 350 second-phase battery systems now up for grabs. AGL first announced plans to develop the ambitious VPP project in August – a centrally controlled network of 1,000 residential and business battery storage systems with a combined total of 7MWh capacity that would both store rooftop solar power and help manage grid stability in the state. AGL has said the finished product, which will have an output equivalent to a 5MW solar peaking plant, will work by using a cloud-connected intelligent control system that will allow the batteries to be directed in unison: a strategy aimed at helping both consumers to maximise solar self-consumption, and the broader community to manage state-wide peaks in electricity demand. I was saying a while back that you can't reap the full benefits of renewable energy generation if you're going to try manage it like with old coal power stations on a centralised "push" model - decades old power grids need to be modernised. See http://ift.tt/2hKJClb
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