Virtual Power Plant (VPP) have been proposed as an effective way to aggregate large portfolios of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) and coordinate them to behave as a single functional unit in both the network and the market. This research narrative proposes that business models that can combine Internet platforms such as Peer- to-peer networks, with VPP to collectively manage DERs, are ideal systems for socially innovative business models to accomplish scale and replication and drive systemic change in the power system. This project lays conceptual foundations to design and simulate such a system. An urban social electricity-trading network is presented using the City of Melbourne as case study. Modelling is performed by applying an optimisation framework to a portfolio of household datasets with solar, simulated storage and flexible demand capabilities; a local community windfarm and large business buildings. Initial simulations show that internal energy trading between members of such a social energy network is highly dependent on local market conditions. However, having the ability to simultaneously operate as a small-scale generator, retailer and demand response coordinator might be the factors allowing these alternative business models to be feasible under various conditions.

authors: Martin E. Wainstein, Michael Schreiber,  Roger Dargaville
The University of Melbourne, Australia.
Fraunhofer IWES, Germany.

Decarbonising the electrical power system holds a critical role in climate change mitigation. Recent developments in technology are helping change the current centralized paradigm into one of integrated distributed clean energy resources. In spite of these developments, radical transformation is not occurring at a speed to effectively meet environmental targets, mostly due to the incumbent carbon lock- in trajectory. We argue that business model (BM) innovation dynamics are key drivers in accelerating the low carbon power system transition, often operating irrespective of the underlying technology. We combine BM theory with the multi-level perspective on sociotechnical transitions to present a useful framework to analyze this potential transition. This paper presents the application of this framework characterizing relevant BM dynamics of niche and regime business actors, and supporting these with illustrative examples. Particularly, we find that new actors in the distributed energy business are achieving market scale by offering financially innovative BMs that do not require upfront costs from customers. Higher penetrations of renewable energy sources in liberalized electricity markets are destabilizing the historical BM of large centralized utilities through erosion of wholesale prices. Furthermore, a shift towards distributed and dynamic energy resources further challenges incumbents and might bring opportunities for BMs focused on active customer participation and social value creation. As these tendencies are expected to accelerate, we find analyses of BMs will have important relevance for future power system transition research.

authors: Martin E. Wainstein, Adam Bumpus
Australian-German Climate & Energy College, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
School of Geography, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
Bill Lane Center for the American West, Stanford University, Palo Alto, United States

Renewable energy is increasingly replacing carbon-based technologies worldwide in electricity net- works. This increases the challenge of balancing intermittent generation with demand fluctuation. DR (Demand response) is recognized as a way to address this by adapting consumption to supply patterns. By using DR technology, grid withdrawal of DSM (demand side management) devices such as heat pumps, electric vehicles or stationary batteries can be temporally shifted. Yet, the development of an accurate control and market design is still one of the greatest remaining DR challenges.

We present a range of flexible price signals that can address this by acting as effective demand control mechanisms. The different tariffs consist of combinations of flexible energy and power price signals. Their impact on the unit commitment of automatable DSM devices is tested for a set of German households. The financial outcome for the respective stakeholders are quantified. Our results suggest flexible power pricing can reduce overall demand peaks as well as limit simultaneous grid withdrawals caused by real time pricing incentives. Furthermore, we prove that inefficient designs of flexible power pricing can lead to undesired bidding of automatable devices. We propose a specific tariff design that shows robust network performance and reduces energy procurement costs.

authors: Michael Schreiber, Martin E. Wainstein, Patrick Hochloff, Roger Dargaville
Fraunhofer IWES, Germany
Australian-German Climate&Energy College, The University of Melbourne, Australia

Microbial fuel cell (MFC) technology has enabled newinsights into the mechanisms of electron transfer from dissimilatory metal reducing bacteria to a solid phase electron acceptor. Using solid electrodes as electron acceptors enables quantitative real-time measurements of electron transfer rates to these surfaces. We describe here an optically accessible, dual anode, continuous flow MFC that enables real- time microscopic imaging of anode populations as they develop from single attached cells to a mature biofilms. We used this system to characterize how differences in external resistance affect cellular electron transfer rates on a per cell basis and overall biofilm development in Shewanella oneidensis strain MR-1. When a low external resistance (100 Ω) was used, estimates of current per cell reached a maximum of 204 fA/cell (1.3 × 106 e- cell-1 sec-1), while when a higher (1 MΩ) resistance was used, only 75 fA/cell (0.4 × 106 e- cell-1 sec-1) was produced. The 1 MΩ anode biomass consistently developed into a mature thick biofilm with tower morphology (>50 μm thick), whereas only a thinbiofilm (<5 μm thick) was observed on the 100 Ω anode. These data suggest a link between the ability of a surface to accept electrons and biofilm structure development.

authors: Jeffrey S. Mclean, Greg Wanger, Yuri A. Gorby, Martin Wainstein, Jeff Mcquaid, Shun’ Ichi Ishii, Orianna Bretschger, Haluk Beyenal, and Kenneth H. Nealson

The J. Craig Venter Institute, San Diego, CA, The Gene and Linda Voiland, School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering and Center for Environmental, Sediment and Aquatic Research, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, and University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA