Revealing Community Energy Reports
by Ana Spataru
On June 2nd, around 30 Community Energy Program members gathered for the second workshop to hear about the foundations of what Village Power is driving towards - the idea that our participating households form a kind of virtual local energy network with flows of energy between solar and non-solar households, shaping the percentage of locally produced energy. We are calling this your Community Energy percentage, and it will form the foundation of everything the program tracks going forward.
The aim of the workshop was to provide members with the building blocks of information. We spoke about the physics of energy, the relationship between power and energy, what the smart meter actually records, how a solar panel on a roof in Alphington becomes a number in a database in 30-minute intervals. It could have been a dry topic but instead there was clear attention and focus in the room. It was the moment when participants started to see the mechanics of their own homes in a new way.
We presented the methodology of what we will report on. How do we calculate a meaningful number from a patchwork of smart meters, modelled solar generation, and 30-minute consumption intervals? One that is honest, that holds up to scrutiny, that captures something real about the community's energy behaviour? The Community Energy percentage is the estimated share of each household's daily electricity consumption met by locally generated renewable energy, shared across our network in the same window it was produced. And members engaged with the topic, with the methodology and its limits. We were clear that the Community Energy percentage is a proxy, a best estimate not a physical or legal allocation of electrons. That solar generation is modelled, not metered directly from the participant households’ inverters.
As we revealed how we will present the information at the community level, the island metaphor seemed to have solidified an otherwise abstract exercise. The first Community Energy Member Reports are in development. They will be prototypes but they will be grounded in two years of energy consumption data. We cannot wait to share them.
Based on feedback we are confident that members took valuable information from the evening, with a majority feeling sufficiently confident with the information provided. We want to document many of the terms and definitions used and will create a compendium of definitions and details about the more technical elements of the work we do to help cement the concepts used in the program.
Our planning, outreach, and quiet persistence, will result in our neighbourhood battery launch in late June – 27 June
And if you have been following Village Power's journey from a distance and wondering whether there is still a way to be part of it, there is. The second intake of households into the Community Energy Program is currently open.