Rooftop solar is a “burning platform,” warns network boss: “Don’t wait for the fire”

The CEO of South Australia’s electricity distribution network has called for stronger, faster collaboration on critical energy reform, to avoid repeating the mistakes and lessons learned by the nation’s most advanced renewable grid – and to fast-track the benefits long-promised to consumers.

South Australia has established what is broadly viewed as a gold standard for rooftop solar integration since becoming the world’s first gigawatt-scale grid to reach zero demand when rooftop solar exceeded all the local customer load requirements, back in November 2021.

But it hasn’t been an easy path.

“Let’s be honest: we didn’t do it because we had a vision board,” SA Power Networks (SAPN) chief Andrew Bills told the Australian Energy Week conference in Melbourne on Thursday. “We did it because we had to. The burning platform arrived early. We just had to get on with it.”

According to the Harvard Review, the “burning platform” metaphor – first invoked in 2010 by then Nokia CEO Stephen Elop – is based on the story of a worker living on a North Sea oil rig who, faced with an out of control fire, was forced to take a 30-meter drop into freezing waters.

In South Australia’s case, the “burning platform” has been its huge rooftop solar resource, which now regularly meets all of the state’s demand and then some, sending wholesale prices into negative territory for thousands of hours a year.

“This shift wasn’t optional. It was born of necessity – because South Australian customers led the way. They installed rooftop solar at world-leading rates. They invested in batteries and began to adopt new technologies.

“And while much of the energy sector has been asking, ‘What does the future look like?’ in South Australia, we’ve been living it – and adapting in real time.”

Bills says SAPN has effectively been forced to evolve from a traditional distribution network to the country’s most advanced Distribution System Operator, or DSO.

“What does [DSO] mean to us? It means we’re not just managing poles and wires anymore. We’re managing a system,” he says.

We’re actively taking part in the orchestration of how energy flows – not just from large generators to homes, but from homes, from businesses, and back again – all in real time, and all to ensure the system stays reliable and delivers value.”

To get to this point, SAPN has been positioned at the bleeding edge of regulatory reform and technical innovation, seeking out and forging new ways to make rooftop solar more visible to the market operator and more amenable to the ups and downs of the grid.

There have been hits and misses. For example, the state was the first in Australia to introduce the Big Solar Button, making it mandatory for all new rooftop solar systems to be able to be switched off, remotely, in cases of grid emergency.

But very quickly SAPN worked out it could use similar inverter-enabled remote controls to ramp rooftop solar output up and down – better known as flexible exports – and thereby largely avoid ever having to use the dreaded Solar Button.

“We’re working the system harder and smarter, to unlock the full value of the infrastructure and in-home technology that customers have already paid for. And in doing so, we can make their lives simpler, more sustainable, and more affordable,” Bills says.

The aim is not to brag, but to urge the rest of the energy industry, as well as market bodies and governments, to take the work South Australia has done on critical consumer energy reforms and run with it.

“That [burning] platform is coming for other jurisdictions too – whether it’s solar congestion, minimum demand, or rising system costs,” he tells the conference.

“The good news is, you don’t have to wait for the fire. You’ve got a head start. You can use what we’ve learned to plan ahead, build smarter – and leap over some of the hurdles we had to crash through.

“But only if we’re all willing to accelerate and stay the course of a couple of critical changes underway.”

Key reforms Bills is calling for include interoperability standards, so devices like solar inverters and energy systems work together; retail pricing reform to reward customer flexibility and improve access to enabling technology, like home energy management systems; balanced investment signals across supply and demand, and; regulatory models that empower smarter investment choices by networks.

“Interoperability,” is particularly crucial, Bills says, in a country where the different states have a history of doing their own thing, often to the detriment of industry and consumers.

“This won’t work effectively unless we solve that [interoperability issue],” Bills tells Renew Economy on the sidelines of the conference.

“Like with flexible exports. …The [SAPN] team spoke to 20-something different inverter companies around the world to get the tech in their inverters to enable us to offer that,” he says.

“Now that we’ve done that …the industry gets [the benefit of] that, right? But that’s what we need for all the tech. It’s got to have that consistency, that interoperability. …It’s key.”

Encouragingly, Bills says that what SAPN has found is that most of this transition work can be done in “surprisingly simple shifts,” including through smarter use of data, targeted customer incentives, better coordination, and unlocking flexibility that already exists in the system.

But it needs to be done quickly.

“Waiting for perfection simply isn’t an option because every delay adds complexity, cost and missed opportunity for consumers, businesses and the economy,” he says.

“We’re asking a lot from customers – electrify your home, buy an EV, trust that your bills will come down. But too often, the experience doesn’t match the expectation. That gap – between expectation and lived experience – is precarious.

“My message, my caution, is, we haven’t got time to muck around. We’ve got to get on with this. This is coming at a pace, you know, we need to accelerate, not slow down.

“We’re not starting from scratch,” Bills adds. “South Australia has set a national blueprint within the regulatory framework we already have. What we need now is the national will – to scale what works and close the trust gap before it grows wider.”

Want the latest clean energy news delivered straight to your inbox? Subscribe to our free daily newsletter.