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Australia is facing challenges in reaching its target of 82% renewable electricity by 2030 due to the slow rollout of clean energy projects. However, rooftop solar presents an opportunity to contribute to the energy transition. Currently, more than one in three Australian houses have solar panels, and these systems generated close to 10% of the country's electricity in the past year. While rooftop solar has the potential to grow, there are challenges in integrating it into the grid, such as grid balance and voltage management. Efforts are being made to manage and expand rooftop solar through new standards and solar management tools. Additionally, shifting energy use to times when the sun is shining and implementing orchestration schemes can make room for more solar on the grid. The article emphasizes the need for clear guidance and stakeholder consultation to effectively manage rooftop solar and other technologies in Australia's energy transition. [Extracted from the article]

Energy system models are important for decision-making and are commonly applied to questions related to the decarbonisation of the energy system, reducing the cost of supplying energy, and managing energy security. However, with this importance have come calls to open up energy system modelling to improve transparency, reproducibility, collaboration, and productivity. Despite this, in jurisdictions such as Australia, open-source energy system models are yet to see widespread adoption and reuse. To better understand how the energy modelling community can promote the adoption of open-source energy system modelling software, this work uses semi-structured interviews to investigate the factors that influence users' choice of energy system modelling software and the perspectives of software developers on these factors. The key factors influencing user choice were usability, technical capability, social context and trust, and risk. In aggregate, developers showed a broad understanding of these factors, but the responses of individual developers typically did not describe the full variation in user responses. Based on our analysis, to promote the adoption of open-source software, we recommend that open-source software (1) developers ensure models are well-documented and (2) remain aware that their perceptions of user preferences may be limited, (3) influential members of the modelling community use open-source energy system modelling software and (4) publish data sets with appropriate licenses; and that (5) the modelling community works together to prioritise potential model improvements with consideration of capability gaps and relative advantage, (6) improve model interface design, and (7) explore options for the provision of support services.

•Assessed the financial impacts of A/C and PV on customers who do not have them.•Air conditioners most likely significantly increase costs for other customers.•Photovoltaics most likely have a neutral cost impact on other customers.•Impacts dependent on the tariff structures and the regulatory environment.•Method can be applied to other technologies and suitable for other jurisdictions.

When a Renewable Energy (RE) power system is owned, operated or maintained by a community organisation, some of the problems associated with other rural electrification implementation models e.g. private or utility, can potentially be solved; including: lack of utility investment, barriers relating to social integration of RE technologies, lack of local maintenance capabilities, and end-user education. However, a range of challenges for community-based energy initiatives in developing countries are identified in the literature, often compromising the long-term operation of RE technologies and the sustainability of the project as a whole. Hence, questions arise around the set of community capabilities required, appropriate project design, and enabling external environment for sustainable Community RE (CRE) projects. Relatively longstanding CRE rural electrification experiences in Central America can offer useful insights on the challenges, capability requirements, and future perspectives for further deployment and governance of CRE initiatives in the developing world. In this study, a comparative analysis from case studies across Panama, Nicaragua and Costa Rica was undertaken after field investigation conducted over eight months. A cross-disciplinary method combining qualitative social research and techno-economic analysis of RE power systems was then used for data integration and sustainability assessment of selected case studies.

The significant growth in the number of distributed photovoltaic (PV) systems installed behind the customers' meter in the last decade has provided financial savings for customers and reduced the greenhouse gas emissions of the electricity sector. However, at high penetrations, PV electricity exported to the grid may result in reverse power flows that violate the voltage and current limits for assets on the distribution network. Although network solutions such as reconductoring and on-load-tap-changes can be used to mitigate these impacts, they are costly to implement. Alternatively, residential battery energy storage systems (BESS) may also reduce export peaks by charging from excess PV electricity. This paper analyses data from 699 residential solar and battery systems to characterise the response of the BESS during times of aggregated export peaks. The majority of the batteries were charged to full capacity too early to reduce the export peaks. This occurred because where there were clusters of days with high photovoltaic generation and low daily loads, which meant that the BESS did not fully discharge overnight. To counter this constraint, this paper modelled 6 simple control strategies to coordinate the BESS response and found that limiting the charging power to 27% of their rated power resulted in the greatest improvement in export peak reduction. These strategies were also applied to a modelled community-scale battery with the same capacity as the aggregated residential BESS. Although the community-scale battery was less able to reduce export peaks when operated in an uncontrolled fashion, under the 27% control strategy it was better able to reduce export peaks than the aggregated residential batteries.