IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2021 - 50

batteries. The third increment adds the average additional
value of using the EMS's standard forecasting and optimization
algorithms to control the battery. The last increment
shows the average value of the network support payments
for operating with the NAC during peak events, less the
opportunity costs of NAC participation. Note that, in the
live trials, customers were paid at a flat rate of AU$1/kWh
for the network support they provided.
Stacking these value streams together resulted in an
average total cost reduction of AU$1,105 across trial participants.
However, customers' motivations are considerably
more complicated and diverse than these purely financial
figures represent, as was uncovered by the project's social
science team.
Social Science
The project team included social researchers who examined
trial household responses to the new DER technologies.
Three interviews were conducted with each trial household
over the trial period (approximately 100 h of interview time
in total), enabling analysis of changing responses over
time. Focus groups, home observations, and energy
diaries were also used. This kind of qualitative longitudinal
research enabled a rich understanding of the different
kinds of relationships between households and their
electricity network that DER technologies bring about
from the householder's perspective.
The social research revealed a large diversity in household
responses to the new DER technology. Some really engaged
with the trial and rated the experience highly, whereas others
struggled to understand the technology and faced multiple
challenges in getting it installed and functioning well. This
is important because a common assumption among industry
and government DER stakeholders is that household members
are likely to be willing and unproblematic participants in
DER sharing with networks. Our social research challenged
this assumption. Households are diverse, and greater awareness
and appreciation of the context in which households make
decisions about their energy is crucial to understanding their
receptiveness to DERs and their DER preferences.
Key issues we identified in our social research were the
pivotal role of the installation process, emotions, changes in
household response over time, and pricing. The installation
process is concentrated on here, as this is an area in which
industry can reasonably easily adapt to encourage householders
to install and share DER resources.
On Bruny Island, the installation process was not a discrete,
one-off event but, rather, a diffuse process that, for
most households, took some time and was not straightforward.
Further, the installation experience was an important
moment for households and one that had a strong impact on
their ongoing experiences of the overall trial, including their
satisfaction with the technology and pricing. Installers varied
greatly in terms of the level of education and support
they provided for households, and, in most cases, installers
could not provide significant follow-up support.
Household DER systems typically comprise multiple
technologies that, when combined onsite at homes, create a
rather complex overall system from the householder's
perspective. While each technology company involved in
the trial provided information and support for its technology
component (for example, Reposit provided support related
to the Reposit EMS, and LG provided information support
for its batteries), there was a need for householders to combine
and synthesize information from different components of the
DER system.
Many households felt emotionally
overwhelmed or simply
did not have the time or interest
to do this synthesis work. Support
for householders in terms of
this broader, combined level of
understanding to resolve some
technical issues
fell primarily
figure 9. Consulting with the community about the trial. (Source: TasNetworks; used
with permission.)
50
ieee power & energy magazine
to TasNetworks and the installers
in this trial. However, it took
considerably more time than
anticipated, and this substantial
overall advice role is unlikely
to be sustainable at scale either
by installers or utilities. Our
social research identified the
installation process as a vital
part of the DER householder
journey and one that requires
some adapting to engage and
retain DER network-sharing
households (Figure 9).
july/august 2021
IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2021

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