IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - September/October 2021 - 14

Dean Sharafi
Australia's power systems
enabling renewable energy integration & resilience
T
14
THIS ISSUE OF IEEE POWER & ENergy
Magazine is devoted to Australia.
But why Australia? The answer is obvious
from the perspective of industry
folks who are facing the challenges of an
abrupt energy transition, and I am hoping
that by reading the articles in this issue it
will be as obvious to our readers.
In Australia, the speed of the energy
transition is faster than in any other country,
and the impacts are more pronounced.
In 10 years, Australia has transformed
its power industry from the third-most
carbon-intensive electricity sector to a
system with a high penetration of variable
renewable energy. In some regions,
the renewable energy generated regularly
reaches a level more than can locally
be consumed. This transformation has
brought about issues and challenges that
are unprecedented.
The moment of deep reflection for
the industry in Australia was in 2016
when the whole state of South Australia
blacked out after a severe storm. The
Australian government acted quickly
and commissioned its chief scientist,
Alan Finkle, to review the future security
of the power system in the National
Electricity Market (NEM), which
serves five of the country's eastern and
southern states. This later led to the establishment
of the independent Energy
Security Board to develop a long-term,
fit-for-purpose electricity market framework
that could be implemented in the
NEM from the mid-2020s.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2021.3088708
Date of current version: 19 August 2021
ieee power & energy magazine
In the separate state of Western Australia,
which has a different electricity market,
the state government formed the Energy
Transformation Taskforce in 2019 to
reform the market regulatory framework.
This comprised a new essential system
services [(ESSs), also known as ancillary
services] framework expected to go live in
2022. The task force also created a distributed
energy resources (DERs) road map
to ensure the security of the grid, given
the increasing participation of consumers
in the electricity ecosystem.
After the South Australian blackout,
we asked ourselves, " How much renewable
energy can be added to a power
system that is designed based on totally
different concepts? " To answer this,
my colleagues at the Australian Energy
Market Operator (AEMO) embarked
on an engineering quest that became
known as the " Renewable Integration
Study. " The results of this study shed light
on what could be expected at various
phases of the penetration of renewables
and how we can overcome the expected
challenges to ensure that we continue to
integrate low-cost clean power into our
energy system.
In the first article, O'Connell et al. focus
on this question and discuss the limits
that affect how much wind and solar
generation can operate at any one time,
how close we are to these limits now, and
how close they may be by 2025. The authors
also present recommended actions
that should be taken now to overcome the
identified technical barriers and maximize
the achievable levels of wind and
solar penetration.
In the second article, " Essential System
Services Reform, " Lal et al. explore
new technical, economic, and regulatory
frameworks for the provision of ESSs in
power systems dominated by variable
inverter-based resources (IBRs).
Australia's two independent market
design frameworks, the islanded Wholesale
Electricity Market and the interconnected
NEM, allow for a comparison of
parallel regulatory and market settings in
supporting system security and reliability.
These two electrical grids have varying
levels of system strength, inertia, and
DERs. System strength, in simple terms,
is the ability of the grid to maintain the
proper voltage performance after contingencies.
The article identifies the emerging
challenges in defining, procuring, and
providing system strength and its interactions
with fault current, inertia, frequency
control, and operating reserves.
The article reviews emerging energy
systems' technological capabilities, including
the provision of synthetic inertia
and the rate of change of frequency,
grid-forming inverters, and advanced
DER aggregation in providing ESSs
and system restart capabilities for
secure, resilient, and islandable grids.
Finally, the authors analyze the recent
technical and financial successes of the
world's largest battery, the Hornsdale
Power Reserve in the South Australian
region, and its ability to inform how future
electricity market frameworks may
incentivize and accommodate new technological
capabilities.
In the third article, " Power System Operation
With a High Share of Inverter-Based
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