Australia’s Landmark Renewable Integration Study

Power systems all over the world are changing, presenting new engineering challenges that must be addressed. Parts of Australia are already experiencing some of the highest levels of wind and solar penetration in the world, in a network that stretches over 40,000km of transmission lines. The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), is taking steps to maintain system security in a power system with a high share of renewable resources.

AEMO recently released the Renewable Integration Study (RIS), which evaluates the technical challenges associated with reliance on high levels of renewable energy resources and the actions that must be taken to ensure power system reliability and security. The study focuses on the time frame up to 2025 when AEMO forecasts that, at times, as much as 75 percent of electricity could be provided by variable wind and solar resources.

Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM) has a cumulative 17 gigawatts (GW) of wind and solar generation capacity, including one of the highest levels of residential solar photovoltaics (PV) in the world. By 2025, AEMO’s Draft 2020 Integrated System Plan (ISP) forecasts in its ‘central’ scenario that this could increase to 27 GW of wind and solar, including both utility and distributed solar PV. The topics discussed during the webinar include:

• What the RIS is and how it originated.
• The areas of study in the report, including managing distributed PV, variability and frequency.
• Key findings and actions.
• What the findings mean for managing the transition of the power system.

The webinar also includes a questions and answers session with the audience and panelists.

Featured Speakers:

• Audrey Zibelman, AEMO, Managing Director and CEO

• Chris Davies, AEMO, Manager, Future Energy Systems

• Barry O’Connell, AEMO, Principal Engineer, Future Energy Systems

Moderator: Charlie Smith, Executive Director, ESIG