Project Symphony

Western Australia’s energy transition

Project Symphony is a major milestone in the WA Government’s Distributed Energy Resources (DER) Roadmap and the pilot has provided valuable insight into how the electricity system can be strengthened to continue providing reliable, secure and affordable power in the face of a rapidly changing energy industry. 

Western Australia has one of the highest levels of installed roof top solar in the world with over 40 per cent of households having roof top solar installed in the SWIS. During daylight hours, with clear sky conditions, combined roof top solar generation is often the largest generator with over 2 gigawatt (GW) of grid-connected roof top solar installed.

While roof top solar presents new opportunities for transforming the grid into a lower carbon, decentralised, two-way power system, it also creates operational challenges such as minimum operational demand that may threaten the secure and reliable operation of the power system.

About Project Symphony

Project Symphony orchestrated approximately 900 DERs such as rooftop solar, batteries and large appliances across 500 homes and businesses into a Virtual Power Plant (VPP). The three-year pilot located in one of Perth’s most prevalent solar districts of Southern River, with almost 50 per cent of households hosting rooftop solar, enabled the aggregation and dispatch of electricity generated and stored by DER assets in a similar way to a traditional power plant.

In undertaking the Project Symphony pilot, AEMO and its partners sought to understand how VPPs could unlock benefits for participating customers, and how they could then be scaled to achieve greater economic and environmental benefits for the Western Australian community.

To view the launch video of Project Symphony please press play below.

Project Symphony key findings

Project Symphony is a major step towards a future where the full capabilities of DER can deliver sustainable value to all customers and to the stability of WA’s power system.

The pilot demonstrated that value can be created from DER orchestration in the SWIS and that creating conditions for DER aggregation in the short to medium term is in the long-term interests of customers.

Some of the key findings include:

• Increased participation of customers and their DER assets in a VPP, along with multiple services will enable the realisation of VPP benefits. Greater participation levels in more services will substantially generate more value.
• Incorporating VPP in the market will substantially reduce power system costs and help alleviate local network constraints, allowing cost reductions to be passed on to market participants and end-use customers.
• Battery storage is a key value creating capability that is important to prioritise in VPPs.
• Policy and regulatory changes are required to enable DER orchestration as part of VPPs and further scale and reduce barriers to entry. 
• Valuable insights into customer awareness and expectations towards participating in a VPP. These insights will be central in developing engagement strategies for future VPPs.

The recommendations from the final Project Symphony report include a series of actions encompassing technology, customer, value and policy that can be delivered over the next four years and are expected to enable greater customer DER participation via VPPs in Western Australia.  

To find copies of all Project Symphony project reports, please visit ARENA’s Knowledge Sharing Bank web page: WA Distributed Energy Resources Orchestration Pilot (Project Symphony).

Project Partners

Project Symphony was a collaboration between AEMO, Western Power, Synergy and Energy Policy WA. Western Power acted as the Distributed System Operator (DSO), Synergy as the Aggregator, and as the established Market and System Operator in the SWIS and WEM, AEMO acted in the role of the Distributed Market Operator (DMO). 

Project partners worked closely with the Western Australian Government, as Project Symphony was a key deliverable of the State’s DER Roadmap and Energy Transformation Strategy.

In addition to WA State funding, Project Symphony also received support from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) as part of ARENA’s Advanced Renewables Program.

The views expressed herein are not necessarily the views of the Australian Government, and the Australian Government does not accept responsibility for any information or advice herein.

To find out more about this pilot visit Synergy's page: Synergy - Project Symphony page