The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has provisionally
lifted generation constraints imposed on five solar farms in the West Murray
Zone, following the successful testing of new tuned inverter settings this
week.
Unprecedented transparency and collaboration across the
energy sector helped solve the issue of solar farms producing voltage
oscillations following a transmission fault, exceeding regulated power system
limits.
AEMO Chief System Design and Engineering Officer, Alex
Wonhas, praised the contribution from across the sector and reaffirmed AEMO’s
focus to progress assessments of new generation projects in the West Murray
Zone now that a solution has been found.
“AEMO is provisionally lifting the constraints but will
continue to monitor the generator performance closely. The scale and pace of
inverter-based solar and wind generation connected in remote and electrically
weak areas of the National Electricity Market, like the West Murray Zone, is
presenting unprecedented grid performance and stability issues,” Mr Wonhas
said.
“Solving the emergent challenge facing these solar farms
required a collective response from many parties to develop a new solution that
reduces the likelihood of enforcing constraints on inverter-based generators in
areas of low system strength.
“AEMO would like to recognise and thank the many people who
have contributed to overcome this Australian-first challenge as we work
together to transform Australia’s energy system,” he said.
In particular, AEMO recognises the collaboration efforts of
network businesses, Powercor and TransGrid, the five constrained solar farms
and their inverter manufacturer, SMA, along with the Clean Energy Council and
contributions from individual businesses.
Powercor General Manager Electricity Networks, Steven Neave,
said a dedicated team of skilled engineers from Powercor worked in close
collaboration with AEMO and the solar generators to develop and implement the
solution. “It is really satisfying to see our customers now return to full
generation capacity. This also benefits all the household and business
customers who depend on reliable electricity supplied by our network.”
SMA Australia Head of Service, Scott Partlin, said: “SMA is
extremely pleased and proud of the role we have been able to play in providing
a ground-breaking technical solution to our customers and the network, which
has seen these curtailments finally lifted. These unique Australian technical
challenges were successfully solved by our German-based Research &
Development engineers by working closely with AEMO. The new capability in our
SMA Sunny Central inverters should assist to benefit the Australian power grid
as the share of renewables increases. We look forward to continuing to work
closely with AEMO to see this new capability realised across our Australian
fleet of inverters.”
Edify CEO and Founder John Cole, said: “We are extremely
pleased to have concluded the local and wide area network tests for Gannawarra
Solar Farm and anticipated return to full unconstrained export. All parties have worked extremely hard to get
to this position. We thank the AEMO and Powercor teams for their outstanding
efforts to coordinate 12 local generator tests, and four wide area network
tests within a five-day window.”
Clean Energy Council Director of Energy Transformation,
Lillian Patterson, said: “Lifting the constraint on the five solar farms is
excellent news, and the Clean Energy Council would like to recognise the
mammoth collective effort from all involved to address this technically
challenging matter. The industry looks forward to continuing to work
collaboratively with AEMO and network businesses to progress new renewable
energy connections in the West Murray Zone in a secure way.”
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