SHIELD (Synchronising Heterogeneous Information to Evaluate Limits for DNSPs) is an ARENA (Australian Renewable Energy Agency) funded project, attempting to tackle one of the biggest obstacles on the road towards more Distributed Energy Resources (DER), especially rooftop solar.

Luceo Energy leads a consortium of five companies within the Project, including Ergon Energy, Energex, Essential Energy and GridQube. By utilising an array of current data sources, coupled with Luceo Energy’s ‘Luceo Platform’ and GridQube’s ‘State Estimation Software System,’ a safe and reliable determination of networks available hosting capacity can be made.

In this way, Distributed Network Providers (DNSPs) like consortium members Energex, Ergon Energy and Essential Energy, have the opportunity to move from static, conservative limitations to a more accurate determination of those limitations, based on data. This has the ability to allow network operators to not only better manage the flow of DER, but to also better plan or defer network investment or upgrades, to the benefit of customers.