To meet Australia’s net zero emissions goals, our energy system must be transformed. By switching to alternative fuels and electrification, and implementing industry-wide emission reduction technologies, our energy infrastructure is becoming more decentralised, interconnected, and dynamic.

The increase in renewables, batteries and innovative technologies will lead to a vastly different electricity system to the one originally designed for a small number of large, close to fuel-source energy generators. The integration of these new technologies needs to be cost-competitive, as well as provide system security and reliability.

Building intelligence into a new ‘Smart Grid’ of customer energy, distribution networks, and the markets that link them is the next step in Australia’s energy transformation.

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What is AS 5385:2023?

AS 5385:2023 Smart Energy Profile Application Protocol is an international adoption of IEEE 2030.5-2018, a standard protocol for devices and systems connected to an energy distribution network to communicate with one another over the internet.

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Who is AS 5385:2023 for?

Australian energy sector businesses from across the supply chain, including distribution networks, retailers, equipment manufacturers and aggregators.

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Why is AS 5385:2023 important?

Australia is moving toward the ‘Common Smart Inverter Profile Australia’ (CSIP-Aus), which aims to assist organisations involved in the Australian electricity network with the deployment, monitoring and active management of Distributed Energy Resources (DER), via the creation of a standardised, minimum communication protocol.  

Examples of DER include:

• Rooftop solar PV units
• Battery storage
• Thermal energy storage
• Electric vehicles and chargers
• Smart meters
• Home energy management technologies

AS 5385:2023 aims to help the Australian energy sector to implement CSIP-Aus and easily access the important best practice information that will ultimately support the move to the Smart Grid and energy transformation.

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What does AS 5385:2023 contain?

AS 5385:2023 defines an application profile which provides an interface between the smart grid and users. It enables management of the end user energy environment, including demand response, load control, price communication, distributed generation, energy storage, and electric vehicles as well as the support of additional commodities including water, natural gas, and steam.  

AS 5385:2023 also defines the mechanisms for exchanging application messages, the exact messages exchanged including error messages, and the security features used to protect the application messages.  

AS 5385:2023 focuses on a variety of possible architectures and usage models including direct communications between a service provider and consumers/prosumers, communications within a premises or home area network (HAN), and communications between a service provider and an aggregator.  

AS 5385:2023 sources elements from many existing standards, including IEC 61968 and IEC 61850, and follows a REST (representational state transfer) architecture for network-based applications, utilising widely adopted internet protocols such as TCP/IP and HTTP.  

The recently published standard AS 5385:2023, Smart Energy Profile Application Protocol is available via the Standards Australia Store and our distribution partners.