abstract The proliferation of distributed energy resources, including rooftop photovoltaics, battery storage, and electric vehicles, is fundamentally transforming electricity distribution grids. Although these resources enhance resilience, support decarbonisation, and enable active consumer participation, their large-scale integration also introduces operational challenges including bidirectional flows, voltage deviations, congestion, and limited hosting capacity. Static operating envelopes, which impose conservative worst-case limits on imports and exports, often lead to inefficient utilisation and unnecessary curtailment. Dynamic operating envelopes (DOEs) have recently emerged as a promising alternative, offering real-time adjustment of operational limits to reflect prevailing grid conditions. This paper provides both a review and a perspective on the development of DOEs. We synthesise methodological advances, spanning optimisation-based, iterative, and data-driven approaches, while critically examining their practical implications for flexibility, market participation, and equity. Beyond reviewing existing work, we highlight unresolved challenges around data availability, computational scalability, interoperability, regulatory design, and fairness in network access. Drawing on insights from Australian and international trials, we identify enablers of large-scale adoption and point to gaps that remain unaddressed in current practice. Our perspective is that DOEs should evolve from a technical tool for network management into a broader framework that integrates consumer engagement, market coordination, and fairness. We outline a forward-looking research and policy agenda to guide this transition, emphasising the need for scalable computation, standardised interoperability, and equitable allocation mechanisms to ensure that DOEs contribute to a secure, efficient, and socially inclusive energy transition.
Barzegar et al. (Thu,) studied this question.