Monash University has secured approximately half a million dollars in funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) to support a project that aims to develop a tool that will address oscillation issues in Australia’s national energy grid.
The $1.3 million project seeks to provide the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) and Transmission Network Service Providers (TNSPs) with a solution that will help them design a more resilient grid.
The tool will enable system planners to avoid upcoming oscillatory stability issues that can be caused by high levels of wind and solar by reducing barriers to the connection and operation of inverter-based resources, ARENA said in a media release.
Oscillatory instability is often a symptom of low system strength in today’s power system. It was observed in the West Murray Region between 2019 and 2020, leading AEMO to reduce the output of five solar farms while it worked through its understanding of the cause and potential solutions.
Darren Miller, CEO of ARENA, said the risks of oscillatory instability need to be addressed to prevent problems from emerging in the long term for the National Electricity Market.
“To manage the risk of instability in an increasingly inverter-based grid, it is necessary to build reliable and efficient tools that can identify root causes early. These tools should also be useful to explore the suitability of solutions for a grid increasingly dominated by renewable generation,” Miller said.
If successful, the project could help provide faster insight into the nature and origin of oscillatory issues, ultimately increasing the stability of the grid to boost renewable generation growth, reducing constraints on investment in renewable generation in weak grid locations, and optimising the production of existing wind and solar farms in wreck parts of the grid.
“Researchers at Monash University are working on the best solutions for oscillations and we’re confident in the outcomes that could help in the ramp-up of new renewable energy generation and storage projects,” the ARENA CEO added.
