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. 2025 Jan 27;55(4):1147-1166.
doi: 10.1080/03036758.2024.2446746. eCollection 2025.

The role of smart community microgrids in Aotearoa's energy future

Mark Apperley  1 , Helen Viggers  2 , Michael Walmsley  3 , Ralph Chapman  4 , Philippa Howden Chapman  5 , Guy Penny  6 , Ian Shearer  7 , Phoebe Taptiklis  8
Affiliations

The role of smart community microgrids in Aotearoa's energy future

Mark Apperley et al. J R Soc N Z. .

Abstract

There is a pressing need to expand electricity production in Aotearoa New Zealand to meet sustainability goals and lower energy costs. This new generation needs to be based on renewable sources, chiefly wind and solar, for both sustainability and economic reasons. While there remains a role for the legacy grid, microgrids provide a means of co-locating generation with load, minimising transmission line investment and energy losses. This paper explores the advantages of smart community microgrids in this context, but also examines the challenges in terms of the existing legacy grid approach. Three case studies are given as examples, covering an isolated community with no grid connection, a more conventional residential community of 30 households, and a community with local commercial/industrial loads in addition to housing. These case studies show the benefits in terms of local consumption of locally generated electricity coupled with sharing or local trading within the community. Microgrids can support New Zealand's transition to a more electrified, equitable, economical and low-emissions energy system, but their development does require not just exploitation of new technologies, but also adjustment to the legacy grid model and a fresh approach to electricity infrastructure planning and management.

Keywords: Renewable energy; community microgrid; distributed energy resources; smart microgrid; transmission loss reduction‌.

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Conflict of interest statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
The proposed Motairehe microgrid comprising 10 houses and the marae.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
The overall hourly energy balance over a full year for the Phase 2 microgrid model. (Orange dots represent hours when hui are taking place, other hours are blue dots.)
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
An example hourly load profile for one of the houses in the group, reflecting a typical household consumption pattern. Also shown, for comparison, is a typical generation profile for a 2.5 kW solar array, on a cloudless day.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Hourly energy balance for the simulated community over a whole year. Points on the diagonal represent balance of local generation and load; points below the diagonal are hours in which local generation does not meet demand.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Hourly grid consumption for a one week period, showing the overall community consumption, and the substantially reduced grid consumption with the microgrid described.
Figure 6.
Figure 6.
Microgrid based on a factory-centred energy community with local renewable generation and energy storage.
Figure 7.
Figure 7.
The combined electricity load profile for the factory-centred energy community, A, for the full year, and B for a winter month.
Figure 8.
Figure 8.
The impact of battery capacity on grid demand for the factory-centred energy community.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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