Noting the prevalence of interoperability challenges and the issues of reduced functionality of installed distributed energy resources that can arise from limited interoperability, a report by the Carbon Trust offers advice and practical solutions to consumers and policymakers.
As the world transitions to net-zero, energy systems become more complex. A greater reliance on intermittent power sources (notably wind and solar) increases the necessity of power systems capable of utilising, storing or selling excess power when production is high or demand is low and conversely drawing upon reserves when the opposite is true.
The twin challenges of climate change and escalating energy bills drive commercial and residential consumers to purchase and install an increasing number of behind-the-meter distributed energy resources (DERs).
DERs on the rise
These resources are predominantly rooftop solar PV, electric vehicles (EVs), EV supply equipment (EVSE) and battery energy storage systems to cut costs and reduce carbon footprints.
This rise in DERs presents a challenge to grid operators; as grids designed a century ago around highly centralised energy production make it difficult to accommodate increasingly distributed generation.
Critical to this transition is the level of interoperability that exists between DER solutions in the market and the grid operators and service providers.
“Interoperability is the capacity of products, devices, and applications to connect, communicate, and provide services with minimal user input. It allows consumers to easily upgrade or add new devices to their system and/or switch service providers without loss of functionality,” says Carbon Trust in its report, Integrate to Zero: Interoperability of distributed energy resources: Benefits, challenges, and solutions.
“Lack of interoperability could increase costs, prevent full consumer participation, and ultimately delay broader energy transitions, particularly at the distribution grid level (the part of a network where consumers and most energy assets lie).
“The adoption of common protocols and standards can facilitate greater interoperability; however, it is often cheaper for manufacturers to adopt proprietary solutions for quicker routes-to-market and to achieve competitive advantages,” says Carbon Trust.
It is often cheaper for manufacturers to adopt proprietary solutions for quicker routes-to-market and to achieve competitive advantages.
Integrate to zero
In its report, Carbon Trust points out that existing interoperability challenges between residential and commercial DERs represent a considerable obstacle to developing a robust and integrated energy system that maximises the financial and energy security benefitting the consumer.
Consumers must make informed decisions when purchasing equipment to:
- avoid brand lock-in,
- enable the full range of functionalities such as backup, grid trade etc, and
- ensure they are future-proofed as new standards, technologies and energy markets emerge.
These issues vary in severity between different DER devices and territories. In some cases, interoperability is affected due to an absence of standards and testing.
In the case of a smart meter combined with a smart EVSE, the consumer could automatically charge an EV when the cost of electricity falls below a user-defined threshold (and vice versa where charging is limited).
However, EVSE and EV solutions rely on unreliable third-party Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). The backup capabilities in batteries are not required or standardised, and manufacturers tend to approve interoperable DC-coupled batteries and inverters under warranty to ensure performance and safety.
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All is not lost, standards are on the way
As the power and energy industry identifies new areas for standardisation the IEEE is adding to their IEE Distributed Energy Resources Standards Collection, which addresses:
- how to connect DERs with electrical power systems,
- smart grid integration, and
- ongoing standards development for DERs, including draft standards for interconnection and interoperability of inverter-based resources and a standard for using blockchain in energy.
Carbon Trust points out that consumers should understand these limitations and options available to them when considering the integration of DER systems for their desired use case. Issues could also stem from a lack of shared standards for communication and data exchange between different devices, platforms, and energy service providers.
In many instances, market drivers for producing interoperable equipment simply do not exist, as manufacturers could stand to lose their leverage in the market, including their ability to sell additional services.
These and other concerns are where policy has a key role to play. An example is where rooftop solar generation potential is high, policymakers have had a greater incentive to intervene and ensure the interoperability of inverters and inverter-based resources (solar panels and batteries) with emerging aggregator markets, which will have notable benefits to residential and commercial consumers looking to sell energy services.
The policy must also accelerate the rollout of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) ready EVs and EVSE across geographies to:
- limit the cost to consumers for replacing equipment,
- draw out advanced functionality such as flexibility trading and backup power to the home or site, and
- establish the infrastructure for the growth and development of new grid flexibility markets.
While the challenges are, in some cases, quite significant, the potential benefits of seamlessly integrated, DER-enhanced, renewable energy which include
- increased grid resilience,
- improved energy efficiency,
- reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and
- additional cost savings
are too great to ignore.
Policymakers and industry must work together to ensure the full potential of DERs is realised for the benefit of all. But what are the solutions for policymakers?
While Carbon Trust could offer a thorough analysis of standards, regulations and solutions in mature markets, thanks to a combination of linguistic factors and availability of information, it urges that future work would provide a more detailed analysis of regional-specific challenges and policy approaches for other emerging markets as well.
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Don’t forget the role of the internet
Before DERs became popular, energy production systems could communicate with the electricity grid through private networks such as SCADA systems.
More recently though, utilities are having to manage DER technology that is remote or owned outright by consumers, and this is changing how grids communicate from using traditional private networks to also using the public internet.
This means that DERs that use the internet create a growing need for more stringent cybersecurity standards and practices. The IEEE’s work around the cybersecurity of DERs interconnection is also something utilities are becoming keenly aware of. There is also a growing movement towards using open standards in the DER space.
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This is again driven largely by adoption of IEEE standards that focus on technical specifications for the interconnection and interoperability of the associated interfaces of the DER technologies with the utility electric power systems they connect to. The electricity industry will thus gradually adopt technologies and standards that rely on traditional internet technologies in addition to utility- and grid-specific technologies as they incorporate more DERs onto grids.
Closely related to this, the industry will see an evolution in communication protocols and standards for DER technologies and operating systems. This being a move towards a space already governed by existing IEEE standards, causing fewer headaches as it necessitates utilities learning about the different rules rather than producing new ones in a vacuum.ESI
[This ESI Africa magazine story was originally published 17 September 2024, updated 16 September 2026.]
