Energy Trends Visualisation Tools

This project aims to provide clear and truthful information to assist stakeholders in understanding the changes in the industry better and how those changes can benefit consumers.

Overview

The Energy Trends Visualisation (ETV) project was established to explore and develop prototypes of at least two online tools that assist energy stakeholders access data to navigate the challenges and opportunities presented by the energy sector transformation. 

By making crucial energy trends more visible and comprehensible, the visualisation tools aim to inform decision-making, build consumer trust, and drive innovation. If successful, these prototypes could be expanded into a larger project to develop an integrated platform for data visualisation tools and applications potentially across a wide range of RACE projects. 

Seven initial tool concepts were shortlisted in collaboration with the Stakeholder Reference Group for consideration to be taken to a prototype stage: 
 

  1.  Minimum demand 
  2.  Electric Vehicles (uptake, charging infrastructure and impact on load profiles)
  3.  Curtailment (large scale and small scale)  
  4.  Large energy users and purchasers, touching on tariff structures and load flexibility   
  5.  Industry trust building (consumer sentiment and unlocking reporting data) 
  6. Making use of voltage data and opportunities for voltage management
  7. Energy workforce jobs (project future workforce and market size from energy scenarios)

Ultimately, four tools were selected to progress to the prototype stage: minimum demand, electric mobility and large-scale curtailment tools were progressed by UNSW and small scale (distribution level PV) curtailment was progressed by UTS. 

The UNSW prototypes can be accessed on the UNSW's Energy trends visualisations page, and an example visualisation is shown below:

Project Partners

  • University of New South Wales (UNSW) (Lead),
  • Australian Energy Market Operator, 
  • Ausgrid, 
  • DEECA (VIC), 
  • Energy OS, 
  • Endeavour Energy, 
  • Powerlink, 
  • University of Technology Sydney (UTS)

List of Researchers

Research status
Current pages
Title & place of publication Author Type Research area Links Year

Energy Trends Visualisation Tools, Final Report

 Iain MacGill, Anna Bruce, Dylan McConnell, Nargess Nourbakhsh, Ed Langham, Maartje Feenstra, Jaysson Guerrero Reports and Working Papers Electricity Markets & Restructuring PDF

Should we worry about wasting renewable energy? Here’s why ‘spilling’ excess power is expected – and efficient

 Dylan McConnell Articles Large-scale Renewable Energy The Conversation