GreenSync awarded CEC innovation award

PRESS RELEASE

GreenSync has won the 2017 Clean Energy Council Innovation Award in conjunction with AusNet Services and Power Tech for their work on the Mini Grid project in Mooroolbark, Victoria.

The project established a Community Mini Grid in a street in Mooroolbark, to try and imagine the future of energy grids in Australia.

The Clean Energy Council Awards recognise excellence in the clean energy sector in the fields of innovation and business community engagement.

GreenSync CEO Dr Phil Blythe said it was a great to see the Clean Energy Council celebrate the ground breaking innovation happening in the industry.

“It’s fantastic to be recognised for what’s really been a world leading project in micro grids for residential communities,” he said.

“This is acknowledgement for the work that’s been done in terms of peer to peer power sharing and highlights the benefits to the community in terms of electricity bill savings.

“In five years we’re going to see the need for these types of technologies growing as renewables become more prevalent at the edge of the grid and more solar on rooftops.

It’s going to become common place that utilities have ways of managing these types of solar communities.”

Dr Blythe said that awards like this provide stimulus to further innovation in the industry and encourage others to push the boundaries.

“These problems of high penetration renewables are really challenging. We’ve learnt a lot from this project and importantly I think we’ve cut new ground.

We’re thrilled to be recognised with AusNet Services and Power Tech as pioneers in this field, particularly when you see some of the cutting-edge innovation shaping the industry in Australia,” he said.

As part of the Mooroolbark Mini Grid trial, sixteen homes were successfully separated from Victoria’s main electricity grid and, using a combination of solar panels and battery storage, were operated together as a stand-alone mini grid.

The homes, including three that had neither solar or batteries, were able to maintain power by sharing the electricity generated by the mini grid.

GreenSync designed the smart solar- storage home systems in collaboration with Ecopower. GreenSync remotely operates the mini grid, ensuring tariff arbitrage, through its cloud-based monitoring and control platform.

Horizon Power also received the Innovation Award for introducing a new way of charging for electricity called “Power Plans” that aims to give customers better choice and control over their power bills.

The 2017 Clean Energy Council Awards were announced last night at the Gala Dinner, as part of the Australian Clean Energy Summit in Sydney.