Energy Web open-source digital spine toolkit to promote the development of Australia's distributed energy market

Author: Energy Web

Compiled by: ChainCatcher

Zug, Switzerland, May 18, 2023 --- Energy Web, an independent nonprofit organization developing open-source software to accelerate the global energy transition, has today open-sourced the Energy Web Digital Spine Toolkit, which supports Australia's Project EDGE distributed energy (DER) market.

The toolkit is designed to help utilities and DER aggregators configure and deploy Digital Spines across power grids worldwide—enabling distributed energy to be securely, efficiently, and seamlessly integrated into the digital infrastructure of local and regional electricity markets. As described in a recent report by the UK Energy Digitalization Taskforce on grid digitalization, Digital Spines have been identified as a powerful tool to "facilitate efficient system operation, improve access to new markets, and support the development of new services for smart and flexible energy systems."

Over the past year, the Digital Spine Toolkit has been running in production to support Project EDGE, which focuses on demonstrating the value that DER can provide to wholesale energy markets and distribution networks. The digital spine supporting the EDGE project enables distributed energy to sell services (such as capacity and voltage support) to distribution companies through aggregators while participating in wholesale energy markets. Bidding and quoting between DER and utilities are constrained by operational limits—DER must comply with 5-minute voltage, frequency, and power constraints to connect and interact with the grid.

The Digital Spine Toolkit currently offers self-hosted integration gateways and cloud-based integration for utilities and DER aggregators on the Microsoft Azure marketplace, and is compatible with various communication protocols, including IEEE 2030.5 utility server implementations. Energy Web plans to integrate the Digital Spine Toolkit with more cloud marketplaces and release additional configurations to enable secure gateway devices and/or individual DERs (such as smart inverters) to integrate directly with the Digital Spine. The Digital Spine Toolkit is also designed to help utilities build and launch new solutions focused on digital twins of distribution networks, advanced distribution planning, demand forecasting, and optimizing DER scheduling.

Energy Web CEO Jesse Morris said, "If we want to decarbonize the grid, we must develop Digital Spines." "Today's utilities simply do not have the tools needed to fully leverage the grid flexibility that DER provides—grid operators need this flexibility to accommodate more electricity loads, more solar, and more wind. Digital Spines provide that capability for utilities."

"Open-sourcing Digital Spines will make it easier for innovative companies to deploy advanced applications on top of it," said Audrey Zibelman, former CEO of AEMO and a long-time advocate for the value that DER can bring to the grid. "If we can get companies providing DER optimization, forecasting, and other digital solutions to utilities around the world to adopt a consistent open-source Digital Spine template, it will greatly help accelerate digitalization—and decarbonization—of the grid."

The Digital Spine Toolkit consists of five key components:

Making the Digital Spine a reality is a top priority for Energy Web. In addition to releasing more relevant open-source technologies, Energy Web will soon publish thought leadership to further define the value and internal workings of the Digital Spine, and actively convene an ecosystem of digital solution providers to build commercial applications on top of it.

If you are a utility interested in learning more or developing Digital Spine in your market, please contact us here.

If you are a digital solution provider or DER aggregator interested in joining our ecosystem of innovators building commercial solutions on top of Digital Spine, please click here to join us.

About Energy Web: Energy Web is a global nonprofit organization accelerating the clean energy transition by developing open-source technology solutions for energy systems. Our enterprise-grade solutions improve coordination across complex energy markets, unlocking the full potential of clean distributed energy for businesses, grid operators, and customers. The Energy Web ecosystem includes leading utilities, renewable energy developers, grid operators, corporate energy buyers, automotive, IoT, telecommunications leaders, and more.