VPPs

DURATION

1 hour and 20 minutes

SESSION DESCRIPTION

A holistic view of the current and future structure for VPP’s in Australia with a further look at the legal and social considerations.

Chair: Terry Mohn, CEO, National Energy Simulators

Distributed Energy Resource management and integration to our existing grid infrastructure – Real Examples and what’s next for VPP’s

Alan Coller, Director Energy Services Division, SolarEdge Australia

VPPS in Australia – what works and what doesn’t (and why)

Rod Woolley, Chairman, Solar Service Group

Geoff Lamb, Senior Strategist & Project Manager, Solar SG

The VIPs in the VPP: Social dimensions of household energy users’ willingness to participate in a PV and battery storage virtual power plant

Dr Sophie Adams, Research Fellow, University of New South Wales

Legal Considerations of Residential VPPs

Katherine Lake, Senior Legal Advisor, AGL Energy

Terry Mohn

CEO, National Energy Simulators

Terry specialises in the integration of renewables into balanced energy platforms for industries, businesses, cities and sustainable communities. Terry's primary field of interest is modernising national electric power grids. He is a highly sought-after speaker on the smart grid, microgrids, standards and renewable energy integration. Terry is the Founder and past Chairman of the International Microgrid Association. He served as WA Energy Minister Advisor, US Federal Advisor to the Dept. of Commerce NIST, as well as emerging technologies for the California Energy Commission. He has chaired the Microgrid Alliance and the United Nations Foundation microgrid work groups. Terry is recognised as one of the ‘Top-20 Global Power Elite’.

Alan Coller

Director Energy Services Division, SolarEdge Australia

Alan is the Director, of SolarEdge's Energy Services Division, delivering market-leading intelligent solutions from utility to commerical to aggregated residential solutions. Alan has over 25 years’ experience across energy, financial services, social housing and technology industries.

For the last decade Alan has led strategy development, innovation and commercialisation in businesses facing structural disruption in their industries. He joined SolarEdge in 2017, a global leader in inverter technology to lead the development of grid services in Australia and New Zealand. Before SolarEdge, Alan was a Senior Strategy Manager for Origin Energy, a leading integrated gentailer in Australia strategies for the development of Distributed Energy Resources and their integration into Origin’s evolving business model.

Alan is passionate about effective disruption and accelerating the transition to a low-carbon electricity system, whilst maintaining resilience and economic value for customers. Alan holds an MBA, LLM (IT & IP Law), a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Energy and is a Graduate Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Rod Woolley

Chairman, Solar Service Group

Rod Woolley is chairman of the Solar Service Group, a trusted Australian entity that specialises in solar battery storage solutions and servicing, maintenance and repairs of solar PV systems nationally. He is also president of the Energy Savings Industry Association. With two decades of experience in the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries, including many years managing a market-based certificate scheme, he now heads a company that is building the largest virtual power plant (VPP) network in Australia.

Geoff Lamb

Senior Strategist & Project Manager, Solar SG

Geoff is a senior strategist/project manager at Solar SG and Members Energy (an entity delivering the VPP on SSG’s nationwide battery fleet). He has extensive experience in energy efficiency and regulation with the Victorian Energy Upgrades program for the past decade, and in AusIndustry before that. Geoff is a lawyer and mechanical engineer, with policy and management experience in commercial, government and community sector roles.

Dr Sophie Adams

Research Fellow, University of New South Wales

Dr Sophie Adams is a geographer and scholar of Science and Technology Studies whose previous work has focused on adaptation to the impacts of climate change. She is currently researching the social dimensions of automation in demand side management through the 'Social License to Automate' Annex of the User-Centred Energy Systems TCP of the International Energy Agency, along with Co-Operating Agent Dr Declan Kuch.

Katherine Lake

Senior Legal Advisor, AGL Energy

Katherine has extensive experience in energy and carbon reduction law and policy as a senior lawyer for international law firms and major companies and policy advisor for the Australian and Victorian governments. She currently works at AGL Energy as senior lawyer on a variety of new energy and distributed energy projects, including AGL’s Virtual Power Plant, demand management projects and corporate power purchase agreements for renewable energy projects. Her professional experience builds on Science and Law (Hons) degrees and a LL.M degree, University College London (International Environmental and Finance Law).

Katherine has previously served on the boards of environmental organisations, taught in the Melbourne Law Masters program (in Renewable Energy Law) and co-founded the Sustainability Business Clinic at the University of Melbourne, the first of its kind in Australia.