System strength workshop

Following stakeholder recommendations, AEMO and CIGRE Australia hosted a workshop for stakeholder and participants to promote a common understanding of definitions, problem statements, appropriate solutions, and complementary perspectives relating to system strength. Furthermore, the workshop explained the system strength phenomena and solutions in a way that can be clearly understood and consistently applied by practicing engineers and non-engineers across the Australian electricity industry and academia.

About the workshop

The workshop was built on learnings from an internationally-focused system strength workshop organised by Australian CIGRE members for the CIGRE 2020 e-Session held in August 2020.

Presenters had been sourced from market institutions, transmission and distribution networks, the generation sector, equipment manufacturers and power system advisors, to give a holistic picture of system strength across five key themes:

Background

This session discusses what is meant by ‘system strength’ and what are the key issues to be considered. Presentations will review both regulatory and technical standpoints and examine how various issues may evolve going forward.

Topic and speakers	Speakers	Organisation
Overview of the workshop	Babak Badrzadeh	AEMO
Keynote 1	Alex Wonhas	AEMO
Keynote 2	David Bones	CIGRE Australia
Fundamental principles	Babak Badrzadeh	AEMO
Relevant regulatory frameworks: present and moving forward	James Hyatt and Julian Eggleston	AEMC
Models and tools: present and moving forward	Sorrell Grogan	AEMO

System strengthworkshop – Session 1

This recording covers session 1 of the system strength workshop with focus on the background and what system strength is.

Generator connections

Presenters from across the industry will share their experiences on system strength challenges in different parts of NEM, solutions that have been applied, lessons learned and improvement opportunities sought.

Topic and speakers	Speakers	Organisation
NEM connections trends: challenges and opportunities	Mark Shilliday	AEMO
System strength impact assessment explained	Sachin Goyal	Powerlink
Power quality challenges under low system strength conditions	Prabodha Paranavithana	TransGrid
System strength challenges and solutions in distribution networks	Alan Louis and Hieu Nguyen	Energy Queensland Powercor
A Generator’s perspective	Trevor Lim	Total Eren
A consultant’s perspective	Tony Morton	Vysus Group
A solar inverter manufacturer’s perspective	Daniel Premm	SMA (Germany)

System strength workshop – Session 2

This recording covers session 2 of the system strength workshop with focus on generator connections.

System strength workshop – Q&A part of session 1&2

This recording covers the Q&A part of session 1&2 of the system strength workshop.

Power system operation

AEMO and a transmission network service provider will share tools and methods implemented to manage the impact of low system strength conditions on real-time power system operation.

Topic and speakers	Speakers	Organisation
Outage assessment and constraint development	Ben Blake	AEMO
System strength in islanded power systems and relation with inertia	Andrew Halley	TasNetworks
Increasing need for system testing and monitoring	Nilesh Modi	AEMO

System strength workshop – Session 3

This recording covers session 3 of the system strength workshop with focus on power system operation.

System strength workshop – Q&A part of session 3

This recording covers the Q&A part of session 3 of the system strength workshop.

Power system planning and emerging technologies

Discussion will include examples of system strength shortfalls identified in some NEM regions, and explore different network and non-network solutions, their applications and limitations based on existing and emerging technologies.

Topic and speakers	Speakers	Organisation
National power system planner’s perspective	Samantha Christie	AEMO
Network investment to improve system strength	Andrew van Eyk	ElectraNet
The use of existing assets to improve system strength	Sachin Goyal	Powerlink
Grid-forming inverters explained	Stephen Sproul	Hitachi ABB Power Grids
Managing system strength during the transition to renewables	Stephen Hinchliffe	GHD
A Gentailer portfolio perspective	Wai-Kin Wong	AGL

System strength workshop – Session 4

This recording covers session 4 of the system strength workshop with focus on power system planning and emerging technologies.

System strength workshop – Q&A part of session 4

This recording covers the Q&A part of session 4 of the system strength workshop.

International and academic experiences

International and Australian presenters from both industry and academia will share some of the relevant research and development works with regard to system strength.

Topic and speakers	Speakers	Organisation
Summary of relevant CIGRE activities	Andrew Halley	CIGRE Australia
Impact of system strength on operation of protection systems	Aboutaleb Haddadi and Jean Mahsredjian	EPRI (US), Polytechnique Montréal (Canada)
Examples of relevant research	Behrooz Bahrani and Firuz Zare	Monash University University of Queensland
A wind turbine manufacturer’s global experience	Torsten Lund and Gert Karmisholt Andersen	Vestas (Denmark)

System strength workshop – Session 5

This recording covers session 5 of the system strength workshop with focus on international and academic experiences.

System strength workshop – Q&A part of session 5

This recording covers the Q&A part of session 5 of the system strength workshop.

For further information, or queries regarding the System Strength workshop, please contact the Information and Support Hub.

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System strength workshop