MEM604 Assignment Report

MEM604 Assignment Report

Context

In Assessment 1, you developed a research project proposal that addressed, among others, the development of a project plan for your research that included the deliverable outcome for this Assessment 2 as work-in-progress to achieving your final research report. This Assessment 2 requires you to describe the progress that you have achieved in your research, as well as reflecting on your research learning, experience, and challenges that you faced and overcame. You also need to identify the research gap that still exists for you to complete then research report and presentation as part of Assessment 3.

Assessment Task

Completion of a work-in-progress report and reflections in 1500 words (+/- 10%) to include the work-in-progress of the research project as planned for in Assessment 1, and reflections on the learnings and experience obtained in doing a research project, as well as the challenges experienced and how these were overcome.

Please refer to the Task Instructions for details on how to complete this task.

Instructions

To complete this assessment, you need to develop a work-in-progress research project proposal by considering, researching, and actioning the following issues:

1. Revisit your research project proposal (Assessment 1) and identify the deliverable that you committed to delivering for Assessment 2 (part of the project plan section).

2. Describe your research to date; ideally this should be organised as progress against each research question.

3. Assess and comment on the progress that you have made in your research against the plan in Assessment 1; identify the research that you still need to do to complete your research project as part of Assessment 3.

4. Reflect on your experience in developing your research project plan and conducting your research to-date. Respond to the following questions:

• What did you learn about developing a research project plan?
• What did you learn about doing research by implementing the research project plan?
• What went well, and what problems and challenges did you face?

5. How did you overcome the problems and challenges?

6. Develop your work-in-progress report and reflections by using the structure provided.

Solution

Title of the research topic:

The title of the research topic is “Assessing, analysing and evaluating the opportunities and challenges associated with the virtual power plant (VPP) concept for energy supply organization, such as Origin Energy, AGL, Tesla, and Energy Australia. However, the research will be conducted by the integration of information related to AGL Energy.  MBA Assignment Expert

Project purpose and objectives:

The primary purpose of the following project is to elaborate on the concepts of the VPP having proper discussion on the opportunities and benefits for the better management of energy by the generation of electricity using the renewable sources of energy. In addition, there are discussion regarding various issues which are related to VPP related to the stability of the grid, safety and the security of the batteries and proper synchronisation of the power plants having the grid. 

In terms of objectives of the following research these are some of the objectives which could be analysed, and they are:

• To understand the importance of implementation of Virtual power plant. 
• To assess the helpfulness of the research to the energy supplying organizations like AGL Energy. 
• To evaluate the benefits for the customers by being the part of VPP. 

Research Questions:

There are generally three research questions which have been established for the following research based on the and they are as follows:

• Why it is important to implement a Virtual Power Plant?

o There is a growing need for the distributed generation, active management of the distributed energy resources which is essential therefore, it is important to maintain the operations of the network of electricity in the future. 

• How this research could be helpful to energy supplying organization, such as AGL energy?

o AGL will have the opportunity to use the solar batteries and the renewable sources of energy for fulfilling the demands. Other than that, it will also help them for providing the efficient resources such as wind turbines, solar panels and the batteries for generating renewable energy. 

• How customer will be benefited by being a part of VPP?

o The customers of VPP will be able to invest in the clean and renewable energy and therefore, be a part of the efficient and sustainable distributed energy grid. Other than that, the VPP will also present a more exciting opportunity for the development of clean power solution which is going beyond the sum of their individual components. 

Methodology:

The methodology which is used for conducting the research is using the secondary data. The secondary data for the following research is collected utilising some of the reliable sources such as government organization, energy supply companies, news articles from the reliable sources (Martins et al., 2018). Other than that, there are no primary data which is collected for the following research that is there is no primary method of data collection utilised such as interviews or meetings with the representatives of the organization for the collection of relevant data. 

Description of the deliverables:

Summary of research conducted against research questions:

The methodology which is used for the following research is secondary data collection method (Martins et al., 2018). Therefore, majority of the data which is collected are done using the sources which are available as the secondary sources. Some of the sources which are used for the following research are government organization, energy supply companies, and news articles from the reliable sources over the internet. Other than that, there are no primary method used for the research. Hence, no survey or face to face interviews or meetings have been conducted with the representatives of the organisations or the people who are working in the companies. 

Since, secondary sources have been used for the following research the availability of data and options is immense. Hence, because of that, proper time was required to sort through the information which are available, based on the reliability of the data, the authenticity of the information and the usefulness of the data for the following research (Igwenagu, 2016). Taking that, into consideration there are three sources or articles which have been cumulated and finalised for the research they are:

Article 1: A Review on the Virtual Power Plant: Components and Operation Systems
(Ghavidel et al., 2016) 

Article 2: Comprehensive review of structure and operation of a virtual power plant in an electrical system (Zhang et al., 2018) 

Article 3: Research on Capacity Allocation Optimization of Commercial Virtual Power Plant (CVPP) (Wang et al., 2022)

All the following three articles which have been collected for the research showcase about the virtual power plant and the structure and operations of virtual power plant in an electrical system. Furthermore, they also help in meeting the purpose and objective of the research. 

Discussion on whether or not the deliverables has been met:

Since, there are three articles which have been collected for the research, there are still questions related to whether or not the deliverables have been met for the research. To understand that it is important to understand the key deliverables of the study is to gather information regarding the research questions which have been asked in the research. Therefore, to understand the following it is important to analyse whether the collected resources are able to make the deliverables achievable or not. 

Generally, there are three research questions which have been taken into consideration. Taking the article 1 into consideration it is able meet the deliverables of understanding VPP and the components and the operations system. Therefore, the research question 1 which is the importance of implementation of VPP can be derived from the following resource. 

The next article which is article 2 provides a more comprehensive review of the structure and operations of the VPP in the electrical system. Hence, taking the following article the research question 2 can be fulfilled as it analyses about the helpfulness of VPP to the AGL energy. However, both the above articles are not talking about how the customers would be befitted by being the part of VPP. 

Therefore, the third article which is article 3 discusses about the research on capacity allocation optimisation of commercial VPP. However, they are not talking about the customers and they’re being a part of VPP. Hence, it could be concluded that all the deliverables are not met. 

Discussion on the research still required:

As discussed above not all the deliverables within the research are not met. Therefore, there are more data which needs to be gathered which can help in answering the research question for the following. Further in the research the data which are gathered will be analysed using any data analysis technique. Since the secondary data is taken into consideration therefore, thematic analysis would be suitable for the following. The next step would be to take that data and have a proper discussion on the results which have been gathered and which can help in conducting the future research by another researcher. 

Reflection on the research experience and learning:

The primary thing which I learned by developing a research plan is that it will allow me to be on a certain timeline and complete the project on time without getting delayed. Other than that, it taught me the project management skills which is required while working within the organization as every project are having their own tight schedule and deadlines which needs to be met. 

By conducting the research using the research project plan the primary thing which I learned is that, to schedule things up before hand and allow me to plan meticulously about my project for the future. Hence, more understanding about the challenges which I might face during the project and therefore, I will be able to take proper precautions when needed.  

The major challenge which I faced was gathering all the required information needed for meeting the research questions. Still there is one research question which is not met completely. Therefore, I need more data for conducting the research successfully. 

To overcome the situation, I implemented the method of categorisation where I was categorising the data as per the keywords and themes. This allowed me to better select the resources which are needed for the research and meeting all the required deliverables.

References:

Ghavidel, S., Li, L., Aghaei, J., Yu, T., & Zhu, J. (2016, September 1). A review on the virtual power plant: Components and operation systems. IEEE Xplore. https://doi.org/10.1109/POWERCON.2016.7754037 

Igwenagu, C. (2016). Fundamentals of research methodology and data collection. LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. http://staging-nodebb-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/FundamentalsofResearchMethodologyandDataCollection-%25philu%25-6fae26dd-631d-4e66-9864-663ec2b30204.pdf

Martins, F. S., da Cunha, J. A. C., & Serra, F. A. R. (2018). Secondary data in research–uses and opportunities. PODIUM sport, leisure and tourism review, 7(3). https://periodicos.uninove.br/podium/article/download/12908/6363 

Wang, S., Jia, R., Shi, X., Luo, C., An, Y., Huang, Q., Guo, P., Wang, X., & Lei, X. (2022). Research on Capacity Allocation Optimization of Commercial Virtual Power Plant (CVPP). Energies, 15(4), 1303. https://doi.org/10.3390/en15041303 

Zhang, G., Jiang, C., & Wang, X. (2018). Comprehensive review on structure and operation of virtual power plant in electrical system. IET Generation, Transmission & Distribution, 13(2), 145–156. https://doi.org/10.1049/iet-gtd.2018.5880