• Energy Research

Abstract This paper reviews opportunities for, and barriers to, increasing photovoltaic (PV) deployment on apartment buildings, with a particular focus on the Australian experience. As rapid urbanisation drives increasing housing density, PV penetration in multi-occupancy housing has been limited by comparison with stand-alone housing in many jurisdictions, including in Australia despite its world-leading residential PV penetration. Given the growing commercial attractiveness of residential PV, this also raises equity concerns for apartment households. PV can potentially be installed to supply electricity to common property, to serve individual apartments, or as a resource shared between multiple apartments through embedded networks, local energy trading or ‘behind the meter’ deployment models. Our study undertook a review of the academic literature in this space and of specific Australian regulatory arrangements, as well as conducting a series of semi-structured interviews with a range of relevant stakeholders. Barriers identified include the huge variety amongst existing apartment building stock, demographic factors and knowledge issues. However, the Australian regulatory context - including governance of apartment buildings, regulation of the energy market, and electricity tariff policies - also impacts on the options available to apartment residents. New business models for deploying PV on apartments are emerging, including initiatives from retailers, developers and community energy organisations. While some issues are specific to the Australian context, or to buildings governed under strata-type arrangements, broader lessons can be taken from the Australian experience, including to inform the design of the regulatory framework required to facilitate widespread PV deployment across all residential housing types.

Abstract This paper reviews opportunities for, and barriers to, increasing photovoltaic (PV) deployment on apartment buildings, with a particular focus on the Australian experience. As rapid urbanisation drives increasing housing density, PV penetration in multi-occupancy housing has been limited by comparison with stand-alone housing in many jurisdictions, including in Australia despite its world-leading residential PV penetration. Given the growing commercial attractiveness of residential PV, this also raises equity concerns for apartment households. PV can potentially be installed to supply electricity to common property, to serve individual apartments, or as a resource shared between multiple apartments through embedded networks, local energy trading or ‘behind the meter’ deployment models. Our study undertook a review of the academic literature in this space and of specific Australian regulatory arrangements, as well as conducting a series of semi-structured interviews with a range of relevant stakeholders. Barriers identified include the huge variety amongst existing apartment building stock, demographic factors and knowledge issues. However, the Australian regulatory context - including governance of apartment buildings, regulation of the energy market, and electricity tariff policies - also impacts on the options available to apartment residents. New business models for deploying PV on apartments are emerging, including initiatives from retailers, developers and community energy organisations. While some issues are specific to the Australian context, or to buildings governed under strata-type arrangements, broader lessons can be taken from the Australian experience, including to inform the design of the regulatory framework required to facilitate widespread PV deployment across all residential housing types.

The Australian electricity industry is facing significant challenges, as recent electricity price rises and technological change have lead to changing demand patterns and high penetrations of distributed photovoltaics. Network tariff reform is underway in response to concerns about overinvestment in network infrastructure and cross-subsidies present in existing tariff structures. In this paper, residential demand data is used to model network revenue per household in a variety of future scenarios. Revenue is particularly impacted under flat rate and time of use tariffs by high penetrations of photovoltaics, while energy efficiency has a potentially significant impact under all tariff designs tested.

The Australian electricity industry is facing significant challenges, as recent electricity price rises and technological change have lead to changing demand patterns and high penetrations of distributed photovoltaics. Network tariff reform is underway in response to concerns about overinvestment in network infrastructure and cross-subsidies present in existing tariff structures. In this paper, residential demand data is used to model network revenue per household in a variety of future scenarios. Revenue is particularly impacted under flat rate and time of use tariffs by high penetrations of photovoltaics, while energy efficiency has a potentially significant impact under all tariff designs tested.

Since the rapid industrialisation, local air pollution has become one of China's most important environmental issues. In consequence, increasingly stringent air pollution control policies have been established by the Chinese government. These policies will inevitably affect China's future electric power investment given the key contribution of this sector to air pollution. This sector is also a key contributor to China’s greenhouse gas emissions and hence climate policy efforts. We present a study exploring what impacts of potential interactions and combinations of different policy efforts for local air pollutant control and carbon mitigation have on China's future electricity generation mix. The study utilises a novel generation portfolio model that explicitly incorporates key uncertainties in future technology costs and different policy approaches including carbon pricing and air emissions control. The findings highlight that China can achieve significant reductions for both greenhouse gas and local air pollutant emissions through a combination of climate change and air pollution control policies. Furthermore, there are potentially significant co-benefits from the perspectives of both air pollutant control and carbon mitigation and, notably, that the co-benefit from a sufficient carbon pricing policy to air pollution emission reductions is much stronger than that from stringent air pollutant control policies to carbon mitigation. Specifically, in order to achieve substantial local air pollution and greenhouse gas mitigation from China's electricity sector, it is necessary to close coal-fired power plants rather than merely seeking to clean their air pollution emissions up.

Since the rapid industrialisation, local air pollution has become one of China's most important environmental issues. In consequence, increasingly stringent air pollution control policies have been established by the Chinese government. These policies will inevitably affect China's future electric power investment given the key contribution of this sector to air pollution. This sector is also a key contributor to China’s greenhouse gas emissions and hence climate policy efforts. We present a study exploring what impacts of potential interactions and combinations of different policy efforts for local air pollutant control and carbon mitigation have on China's future electricity generation mix. The study utilises a novel generation portfolio model that explicitly incorporates key uncertainties in future technology costs and different policy approaches including carbon pricing and air emissions control. The findings highlight that China can achieve significant reductions for both greenhouse gas and local air pollutant emissions through a combination of climate change and air pollution control policies. Furthermore, there are potentially significant co-benefits from the perspectives of both air pollutant control and carbon mitigation and, notably, that the co-benefit from a sufficient carbon pricing policy to air pollution emission reductions is much stronger than that from stringent air pollutant control policies to carbon mitigation. Specifically, in order to achieve substantial local air pollution and greenhouse gas mitigation from China's electricity sector, it is necessary to close coal-fired power plants rather than merely seeking to clean their air pollution emissions up.

Abstract The growing deployment of utility-scale photovoltaic (PV) in electricity industries raises many concerns for power system operation. Due to the highly variable and somewhat unpredictable characteristics of short-term PV output, the system operator faces challenges in balancing electricity supply and demand, which increases the need for short-term frequency management. Although many studies have been carried out to enhance the understanding of short-term PV output characteristics, the uncertainty around forecast targets for electricity market dispatch has not been studied. This paper analyses 4-s SCADA output data from PV plants and all other generators operating in the Australian National Electricity Market (NEM) to assess the deviation from their forecast dispatch targets. During the study period, PV penetration was less than 5% of the total generation capacity. The deviations of PV plants from forecast targets increases almost proportionally with their operating level. The correlation between deviations from the targets and system frequency deviations shows that PV plants contribute towards increasing frequency deviations, yet the impact seems minor, with only 0.06–0.09 correlation coefficients. Despite their variability during normal operation, PV plants demonstrate accurate output control when following dispatch instructions during network constrained periods with fluctuations of only ±1% of the plant rated capacity.