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 |
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) |
This recording covers session 2 of the system strength workshop with focus on generator connections.
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 |
This recording covers session 3 of the system strength workshop with focus on power system operation.
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 |
This recording covers session 4 of the system strength workshop with focus on power system planning and emerging technologies.
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) |
This recording covers session 5 of the system strength workshop with focus on international and academic experiences.
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.