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What are distributed energy resources?

Many Victorians use distributed energy resources to generate, store, manage and sell their energy. This includes solar panels, home batteries, electric vehicles and controllable air conditioners.

The use of distributed energy resources is increasing. It is expected that:

  • by 2025, solar panels on homes and businesses will deliver up to 60% of our energy demand at times
  • within the next decade, the energy in small-scale batteries will increase 8-fold
  • by the mid-2030s, electric vehicle use will increase by more than 1600%.

How to access distributed energy resources

Renters, community housing tenants, homeowners and rental providers can access subsidies to generate, store, manage and sell their energy. Current subsidies include:

Supporting the transition to distributed energy resources

Harnessing Victoria’s distributed energy resources shows how we will support this shift to distributed energy resources. By helping householders and businesses save money through control of their energy. Energy affordability, sustainability and reliability remain top priorities for the government through this transition.

Opportunities

By integrating distributed energy resources into our electricity grid, we can:

  • lower our emissions and electricity price
  • have greater energy security and consumer participation.

Challenges

We are addressing the challenges of connecting distributed energy resources to our old electricity system. This system was designed for a few coal generators rather than a vast network of small-scale renewables and strong consumer participation.

Our vision is to deliver reliable, sustainable and affordable energy services, and a zero emissions, climate ready economy and community.

A vision for tomorrow. Yesterday – A few, large power plants. Tomorrow – Many, small power producers. Yesterday – Centralised energy system Tomorrow – Distributed energy system. Yesterday – Old infrastructure Tomorrow – Modernised infrastructure. Yesterday – One direction Tomorrow – Both direction. Yesterday – Passive, paying for energy Tomorrow – Active, participating in the system

To achieve our vision, we will focus on:

  • helping all householders access the benefits of distributed energy resources
  • driving innovations through place-based initiatives
  • future-proofing consumer protections for our transforming energy system
  • supporting business and jobs to harness the opportunities of distributed energy resources
  • transforming our public and private buildings
  • preparing our grid for distributed energy resources integration and consumer access to markets.
The customer journey: 1. Awareness and research. Consumers proactively seek out information. 2. Engagement with marketing. Suppliers engage with consumers to seek their business. 3. Purchase. Consumers make their purchasing decisions. 4. Installation. Consumers select accredited providers to install DER devices and services. 5. Connection. Consumers choose a retailer and or approved third party to connect devices and provide energy services. 6. Operations and maintenance. Retailers and or third party provide energy services, billing and data management. 7. Disposal. Consumers and suppliers dispose of DER products and services in line with regulations.

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Consultation - protections for users of distributed energy resources

We’re looking at whether further consumer protections are needed for distributed energy resource users. We want to understand the potential risks to users and areas for possible reform to ensure users have sufficient protections.

Feedback via this consultation, now closed, will help inform whether changes to consumer protections are necessary.

A summary of submissions will be published in February 2023.

Read the Protecting consumers of distributed energy resources (DER) paper.

Page last updated: 20/12/22