Grids & Integration

Solar PV is an important contributor to all energy scenarios presented in AEMO’s latest “Input, Assumptions and Scenarios Report,” but what’s the best possible outcome it can enable?

Speculation will be rife as to the cause of the fire which destroyed one Tesla Megapack and damaged another in Moorabool on Friday. Investigators are waiting until the site is deemed safe to begin their forensic examination.

The time is now for the energy consumer, says Anna Bruce, as energy “prosumers” produce, consume, and provide electricity and grid services in previously unimagined ways. Bruce, a senior lecturer at the University of New South Wales’ School of Solar Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering (SPREE), leads work on the role of distributed energy resources in the energy transition, analysing firsthand the dizzying level of complexity it brings.

The federal government has allocated $25.6 million to support 20 microgrid feasibility studies, including in communities affected by the Black Summer bushfires, which left regions without power for weeks.

Transmission network operator TransGrid has confirmed works on two high priority electricity infrastructure projects which will allow for more renewable energy to be connected to the National Electricity Market have reached major milestones.

The evolution of Australia’s electricity grid continues at pace with the nation’s newest large-scale wind and solar projects helping produce a string of renewable energy production records in the National Electricity Market.

The University of Wollongong has secured $5 million in federal government funding to establish a renewable energy focused training centre which will address the “complex and challenging issues” currently limiting the growth of renewables, including solar PV and wind energy in Australia.

According to a new study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, hydrogen-fired gas plants will compete with lithium-ion storage for seasonal storage and their competitiveness will strictly depend on the heat rate of the gas power plants they may replace.

Researchers from Melbourne’s Monash University have unveiled new machine learning technology which has already delivered a 45% improvement in the precision of power output forecasts at large-scale wind and solar farms and could potentially pave the way for increased renewable energy penetration in the grid.

In his first public address, the newly appointed head of the Australian Energy Market Operator significantly upped the Operator’s ambitions for renewable penetrations in the grid, conveying the importance of no longer constraining what he called ‘zero cost’ renewable energy assets.