Author Archives → bjorns

Vehicle-to-grid response to a frequency contingency in a national grid

A paper published in npj Sustainable Mobility and Transport analysing the vehicle-to-grid response to a major grid disturbance in the Australian grid.

Abstract

Vehicle-to-grid technology enables electric vehicles to contribute their large, high-power batteries to power systems reserves. Here we report the first demonstration of a fleet of vehicles discharging to support system security after a frequency contingency in a national grid. Our results highlight the potential of vehicle-to-grid, with vehicles discharging within 6 s of the contingency event, and shortcomings, with vehicles recommencing charging before the power system had fully recovered.

Full paper below

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Exploring microgirds in the Australian contex

Intuitively it makes sense that microgrids are a good idea. There are many of us that want that to be the case and for good reason. They have the potential to bolster local resilience, increase utilisation of renewable energy sources and give a sense of autonomy back to communities.

One of BSGIP’s most substantial pieces of research is drawing to a close. The Southcoast microgrid Reliability Feasibility (SµRF) project is a $3.1 m transdisciplinary project that explores the challenges and benefits of microgrids within an Australian context. Set within the New South Wales south coast shire of Eurobodalla, a region devastated by the 2019-2020 Black Summer, the project took a deep dive into this technology and how it could be integrated into today’s complex and multifaceted energy system.

This article focuses on two recently published reports; a technical report that lays out a number of scenarios using real-world data applied to selected sites, and a social science report examining governance, social and regulatory issues under the current system.

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Presentation: Watt price equity?

IMHO, the energy system has 2 goals:
• Efficiency – minimizing total economic & ecological costs
• Equity – human wellbeing, individually and collectively

The (Nobel prize earning) Tinbergen rule stipulates that each of these goals requires its own policy instrument. Relying on 1 market price – to efficiently manage EV charging without inequitable punishing parents for cooking at 6pm – flies in the face of this.

So, what can be done? Late last year I had the privilege to speak my mind about this problem and potential solutions (spoiler: separating energy demand into an essential and a flexible component – which could just be EVs to start with) as part of a Victorian Council of Social Service event and in a presentation to the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) economic research team.

The first preso was recorded

Slides and here

202411-Sturmberg-Energy_equityDownload

And context of the VCOSS project is https://vcoss.org.au/projects/2024/01/energy-health-nexus/

Discussion with the ACT Chief Minister

I had the pleasure of discussing all things energy transition with the ACT Chief Minister late last year in my role as ACT Emerging Scientist of the Year.

His description below… https://www.linkedin.com/posts/andrewbarrmla_dr-bjorn-sturmberg-has-been-awarded-the-2024-activity-7274676995525894145-duD4

“Dr Bjorn Sturmberg has been awarded the 2024 ACT Emerging Scientist of the Year Award for his work on clean energy technology.

The Award recognises the achievements of an emerging scientist and celebrates excellence in scientific research and innovation here in the ACT.

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Publication of electric bus & depot model

RouteZero, our tool for simulating the energy consumption of electricbuses on any given bus route and the grid impacts of charging them at a bus depot has been published in a Nature Portfolio special issue https://www.nature.com/articles/s44333-024-00008-2.epdf

The tool is now also availble opensource in its entirity https://github.com/bsgip/RouteZero/

While the easy to use web version remains freely available https://routezero.cecs.anu.edu.au/ has been extended to include Autearoa.

If you’d like to have further routes added to the web version please send me a message. All we need is the gtfs files (which are ubiquotously available).

Hats off once more to Johannes Hendriks for doing the heavy lifting in creating this fantastic tool!

Flat fees for flexible EVs

This study builds upon the recently published Unplugged is inflexible report to explore one avenue by which EV drivers could be incentivised to: 

  1. plug their EVs in for extended durations, and  
  1. permit their vehicles to be charged flexibly.  

While there are many avenues by which this could be done, we here explore the potential for EV drivers to be offered very simple, flat retail offers based solely on how often they plug in their EVs and how much energy their EV consumes. This approach entirely removes considerations of when in the day vehicles are plugged in, which lightens the mental burden on drivers and may contribute to greater acceptance of managed charging. 

This concept is motivated by the belief that creating price-certainty, and ideally cost-certainty, is a core way in which electricity retailers create value for their customers. This EV charging arrangement engages customers (EV drivers) is a quid pro quo where retailers contribute their expertise and diversity of customers to manage pricing risk, and EV drivers contribute the flexibility of their charging demand. 

Our modelling shows that doubling the amount of time EVs are plugged in for reduces the cost of charging by half. To be clear, this requires nothing of EV drivers other than having their EV connected to a charger for longer periods, which enables more flexibly charging behaviour. 

To quantify the risk for retailers we conduct a statistical analysis in terms of the cost of EV charging per day or per kWh. This suggests that offering a fixed price per day may go beyond retailers’ risk appetite, making a fixed price per kWh the more attractive option. This is likely also fairer for customers as it charges for the precise amount of energy used. 

The addition of vehicle-to-grid increases the benefits of longer plug-in times by facilitating market arbitrage. Vehicles that are driven less than 40km per day and are plugged in to chargers for more than 8 hours a day (with vehicle-to-grid) can, on average, be charged at zero or negative cost. 

While outside of the scope of this study, we note that this same tariff concept (and simulation model) could be applied matching flexible EV charging with the generation of a collection of wind or solar farms. This would provide another way for a retailer to manage/fix their price exposure while simultaneously creating value for customers by charging vehicles with zero emissions power. 

Full report below

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Unplugged is inflexible – How drivers’ plug in behaviour determines the flexibility of electric vehicle (dis)charging

In a neat little project for the ACT Government I analyse the (IMO oft overlooked) critical step of when EV drivers plug in their vehicles. If they’re not plugged in for substantially longer than required for charging then EVs are not the fabulously flexible load that they could be.

202406-Unplugged-is-inflexibleDownload

Watt equity? Australians deserve a Basic Energy Right

This essay was first published in Australian Quarterly 95.3, Australia’s Longest running public affairs magazine, published by Australian Institute for Policy and Science https://aips.net.au/aq-magazine/current-edition/

AQ-95.3-JUL-SEP-2024-Watt-EquityDownload

Within the energy industry there is a popular, feel-good refrain that the energy transition will deliver a system that is ‘democratised’, in addition to being ‘decarbonised’, ‘digitised’, and ‘decentralised’. Here democratised is used as an umbrella term for a broad suite of desirable values: fair, just, equitable. Yet the way in which democratisation is envisioned to occur is, in contrast, blinkered – households are seen to gain political power as a consequence of their generating and controlling electrical power from rooftop solar, batteries, and electric vehicles – but what about those without?

This prevailing narrative of democratisation overlooks, amongst other things, the connection between privilege and ownership of these technologies, and the structural realities of social, as well as techno-economic, power. In particular, it ignores the systemic effects of managing energy through markets and, consequently, ignoring energy’s role as an essential service underpinning modern life.

The starting point of this essay is that the energy transition is not on track to improve equity. This is because equity will only be improved if it is prioritised above competing values, such as profit, in the millions of design choices that constitute the transition.

Such prioritisation is impossible within the existing (artificially) constrained policy landscape, in which the only options are those within the framework of indistinguishable individuals interacting through a market. This eliminates any space for unequal redistribution in recognition of the differing circumstances within the collective, and thereby contributions towards equity.

Progress towards equity rests on expanding the policy imagination. This essay offers one such suggestion: the establishment of a Basic Energy Right that provides all households with a modest amount of energy free of charge to meet their essential needs.

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Bean nuclei

There once was a bean farmer called P. For years, he’d supplied his local shops and cafes with tasty black beans. But then along came a new farmer whose green beans were much cheaper, and what’s more didn’t make people fart.

Everyone in town was excited to switch to these new cheap fart-free green beans. Farmer P was facing ruin.

So P decided to remind everyone that there was also a third type of bean that they should consider. This is an exotic purple bean that no local had ever tried.

Now P knew that these pink beans were expensive, hard to grow, and were suspected of making people’s hair fall out. No customers was going to choose the pink beans over the cheap, clean green beans.

But by making his customers spend time researching these pink beans P hoped to sell them another season or two of his old familiar black beans.

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Inspired by question from students at Cringila Public School as part of a DeadlyScience session | Image from deepai.org