- The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) said it has finished testing a connections simulation tool that will help developers of new storage projects to more efficiently prepare their applications for projects and reduce the time needed to connect them to the National Electricity Market (NEM).
AEMO said the connection simulation tool provides a cloud-based environment for users, including developers of energy projects such as large-scale solar and storage facilities, to run studies against AEMOโs model. This could help to integrate and fast-track renewable energy into the energy system.
Developers of large-scale renewable energy projects in Australia areย currently required to submitย testing models to AEMO that outline the impact a proposed project could have on the grid. If that modeling is delayed or denied, the developer is required to โtuneโ their model, which can be a costly and slow process.
AEMO said the connection simulation tool will allow project developers and their partners and electricity networks to rapidly test and refine their renewable energy plant and project configurations using the same detailed wide-area power system simulations being used by the market operator to assess connections applications, while preserving the confidentiality of their model data.
โIn a world-first, we are enabling project developers to have open access to test their connection directly against AEMOโs power system model through a secure gateway,โ said AEMO Chief Executive Officer Daniel Westerman. โThis will allow developers to simulate their connection, interrogate the technical outputs and iron out any bugs quickly and directly. Connections have been a teething issue in recent years, but now this is an area where Australia is absolutely leading the world.โ
Merryn York, AEMOโs executive general manager of system design, said the innovative resource will support Australiaโs energy transition, helping reduce risks, costs and time for connection approvals.
โIn the next decade, Australia will experience our first cluster of coal-generation retirements, equal to approximately 14% of the NEMโs total capacity, which will challenge electricity reliability and power system security,โ she said. โReplacing coal with low-cost renewables, supported by firmed generation and the timely investment in transmission, is needed to provide reliable, secure and affordable energy for all Australians. The connections simulation tool will contribute by helping reduce risks, costs and time to approve the connection of new generation and storage projects, critical to replace retiring coal generation.โ
The testing of the working prototype included generation developers, power system engineering consultants and energy equipment manufacturers to test the end-to-end user experience, including portal access, features and navigation, and running project modeling studies.
AEMO said the connection simulation tool is a critical foundational operating platform to achieve the market operatorโs overall objective to efficiently manage a large number of grid connection applications from renewable energy developers.
In the past year, AEMO has registered 29 new generation and storage projects totalling 4 GW of capacity, an increase of 1 GW from last year and 2 GW from the 2020-21 financial year.
This included Australiaโs largest battery (Victorian Big Battery, 300 MW), largest solar farm (Western Downs Green Power Hub, 400 MW) and largest wind farm (Stockyard Hill, 511 MW).
โIn addition to the growth in the number of new projects and generation capacity, Australia is also breaking new ground with designing, testing and connecting new technologies, such as grid-forming batteries that provide inertia services,โ York said.
The overall number of projects undergoing AEMO connection assessment across the NEM now remains high, with 149 projects with a combined total of 22.3 GW in the pipeline.
Partly funded byย the Australian Renewable Energy Agencyโs (ARENA) Advancing Renewables Program, the connections tool is one of AEMOโs initiatives to streamline the connection process and experience for participants.
Other projects include theย Connection Reform Initiative, a partnership with the Clean Energy Council (CEC) to remove delays and deal with the increasing complexity in connecting projects to the NEM.
Author: Dave Carrol
This article was originally published inย pv magazineย and is republished with permission.