The Indra Monash Smart City will demonstrate how smart and renewable technologies can be integrated at the Monash University Clayton embedded network to maintain power quality and test market driven responses and business models.
How the project works
The Indra Monash Smart City project use Indra’s grid management platform to enable control of distributed energy resources, including a minimum of 1 MW of solar panels, 20 buildings, electric vehicle charging stations and 1 MWh of energy storage. Indra’s Active Grid Management (InGRID AGM) platform will provide real-time monitoring and control over the grid-connected assets, and be optimised to add value to customers, market participants and the electricity grid.
Firstly, the assets will be monitored in real-time enabling visibility and control at the low-voltage network.
Secondly, the assets will be optimised to ensure efficient and reliable supply of electricity within the technical limits.
The third and final phase will implement a transactive market to allow each building to buy and sell electricity, and optimise use in response to pricing signals.
Area of innovation
Unlike other embedded network projects relying on centralised control from one single industrial equipment manufacturer, the Indra Monash Smart City will demonstrate the interoperability among different manufacturers and technologies to unlock opportunities for scalable smart grids with participants and providers. This is to ensure the technical and commercial solutions being developed are replicable beyond the realm of this project. Rather than duplicating existing functionality, Indra’s platform will leverage the intelligence of the various systems and use its openness to standard protocols to integrate third-party technology that adds value to the platform.
Benefit
The Indra Monash Smart City will demonstrate how a 100% renewable powered embedded network could operate reliably, and the value it could provide to customers and the broader energy network. It will show the value of smart energy infrastructure to the various market participants, and will lay the path to commercialisation for similar projects across a range of greenfield and brownfield applications. Real-time integration will facilitate the sharing of information and services amongst network companies, customers and new market players (such as aggregators).
Monash University continues to play a leading role in the transformation of Australia’s electricity system, with the launch of the Monash Smart Energy City project.
Monash, with industry partner Indra and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), today announced they have been successful in receiving $2.9 million through ARENA’s Advancing Renewables Program for the Monash Smart Energy City project.
The Smart Energy City project will see the development of a Microgrid at Monash Clayton. Using Indra’s Ingrid AGM software platform, the Microgrid will enable control of various distributed energy resources deployed as part of the Net Zero Initiative, including a minimum of 1MW of solar panels, 20 buildings, electric vehicle charging stations and 1 MWh of energy storage.
Related Link: https://arena.gov.au/projects/indra-monash-smart-city/