A virtual power plant (VPP) is being trialed in Western Australia to demonstrate how hundreds of distributed energy resources can help stabilize the electricity grid. More than 300 customers and more than 650 customer-owned distributed energy resources are participating in Project Symphony.

The two-year pilot project is now underway in a southern suburb of Perth, an area of particularly high rooftop solar adoption, in a country of high rooftop solar adoption. By choreographing assets such as solar, home battery energy storage systems and some household appliances like smart thermostats, the VPP coordinates the generation and storage of electricity at a local level. The VPP responds to grid conditions in real-time, managing the flow of electricity around peak and off-peak periods.

The VPP will aggregate electricity generated by distributed energy resources and dispatch excess supply to the network in the same way as a traditional power plant. Source: Western Power

Project Symphony will test four different scenarios in the scenario testing phase. These include a simulated local wholesale electricity market in which more than 200 distributed energy resource assets will function as one resource, meaning the virtual power plant can bid and dispatch into the market while also providing voltage services to the network.