Inverter standards revised in big deal for solar and vehicle-to-grid technology

Australian/New Zealand Standard 4777, parts one and two, have just opened for public comment after a recent revision process.  For anyone not familiar with this one, it governs the requirements for grid connected inverters – it’s a really big deal for the solar industry and is going to be a key element in enabling vehicle to grid in Australia.

The latest revision has taken into account input from many organisations with a specific view to enabling Vehicle to Grid inverters and their installation to be supported across Australia.

This is a new, complex, and rapidly changing field.  The team doing the work are some of the best experts in the country in this area…. and Australia’s experts at standards for small grid connected inverters are among the best in the world, because of our world-leading uptake of rooftop solar.

This said, we’re all human.  It’s possible that key details which would better enable V2G uptake in Australia might have been missed in the drafting.

Catching this kind of thing before the standard is finalised and published is what the public comment stage is for.  We’re shining a light on this stage in the process with the goal of attracting constructive and well thought through input, in order to make our ‘better’, ‘best’.

If your business might involve V2G products, solutions, or installations in the next 3 to 5 years in Australia, we strongly encourage you to have your technical team (local or overseas) review this public comment draft.

If there are specific changes you’d like to see in order to better enable your organisation to deliver on V2G in Australia, please provide your comments into the Standards Australia process.

Once this standard is published, the CEC will look to update their inverter listing categories document accordingly. The current inverter categories document can be found here.

The details of the Standards Australia public comment process are here:

Standard: DR AS/NZS 4777.1:2022 Grid connection of energy systems via inverters, Part 1: Installation requirements

Comment Start Date: 21/12/2023
Comment End Date: 07/03/2024

Link: https://comment.standards.org.au/Drafts/043b6b46-9f6f-493b-9b88-bc65518917b0

Standard: DR AS/NZS 4777.2:2020 Amd 2:2023 Grid connection of energy systems via inverters, Part 2: Inverter requirements

Comment Start Date: 21/12/2023
Comment End Date: 22/02/2024

Link: https://comment.standards.org.au/Drafts/451ae50c-2567-410

Ross De Rango is head of energy and infrastructure at the Electric Vehicle Council.