We appreciate the opportunity to provide a submission to the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO)’s second stage of consultation to amend the Market Ancillary Service Specification (MASS).

We broadly support the proposed amendments and AEMO’s review of the MASS. The Frequency Control Ancillary Services (FCAS) market plays a vital role in ensuring the stability of the electricity network, acting as a secondary market to the electricity wholesale market to maintain system security. To date, FCAS has traditionally been supplied by utility-scale plant which can meet the required technical specifications (the MASS). However, the rapid growth of distributed energy resources (DER) and potential of virtual power plants (VPPs) means there is an opportunity for DER to play an important role in the FCAS market if the current specifications were to change to allow and reward this capability.

We believe our future energy system should be modern, resilient, and flexible, whereby the decentralised system can safely and reliably provide flexible energy supply, storage, and demand. We support changes that encourage and enable DER to participate in providing these fast frequency support services and which would unlock the value these resources can provide to the wider system.

Read our full submission here.