Supporting grid resilience in Victoria

Victoria has secured the help of grid resilience technology company Reactive Technologies (Reactive) in order to ready its grid for the state’s energy transition.

Reactive has secured AU$1.43 million from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) for a trial project to provide real-time, accurate grid inertia measurements. The Victorian Government’s Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA) also provided funds for the project.

With two-thirds of its coal-powered stations expected to close by 2040, Australia needs accurate grid inertia measurements in order to connect more renewables to its grid. Grid inertia — the ability of generators to maintain a steady power supply in the face of disruptions — becomes harder to track and measure with legacy tools as more renewable generators are added to a grid. To meet this challenge on grids around the world, Reactive’s GridMetrix tool provides new levels of visibility into grid functions, replacing estimates and modelling of inertia and enabling operators to predict and plan for guaranteed sources of inertia to keep the power grid stable.

Reactive secured the funding for the project through ARENA’s Advancing Renewables Program, which supports initiatives that optimise the transition to renewable energy. The trial will be deployed with the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) and supported by DEECA, Melbourne Energy Institute (University of Melbourne) and French renewable energy company Neoen.

The trial will operate over a range of conditions including high solar, high wind and high demand periods across Victoria. Neoen’s Victorian Big Battery, a utility-scale energy storage installation, will send a small signal into the grid that Reactive’s Extensible Measurement Units (XMUs) will measure. Following the XMUs’ measurement of the signal, Reactive’s patented GridMetrix software will analyse the data and allow AEMO to view inertia values in real time on the GridMetrix dashboard.

“We are proud to have earned this funding from ARENA, and we are eager to show how powerful our technology is when it comes to facilitating a swift and smooth transition to net zero carbon grids without sacrificing reliability or resilience,” said Marc Borrett, CEO of Reactive Technologies.

“Australia is one of many countries around the world that is taking admirable steps toward accelerating their energy transition and have rightly identified measurement of inertia as a crucial component of that transition. We applaud the roles the federal and Victorian governments are playing in this project and look forward to deepening our collaboration with ARENA and other Australian government agencies as we begin our work.”

“Continuous measurement of inertia will become highly valuable as it will allow less conservative grid operation and ultimately the ability to accommodate more non-synchronous generation such as solar and wind,” said Darren Miller, CEO of ARENA. “Reactive Technologies’ measurement tools could change the way the NEM is managed. With real-time data available to AEMO, they could also then optimise customer-side generation, which has been proven to contribute as much as 30% of total inertia to the National Grid in the United Kingdom.”

Reactive Technologies was founded in Finland and the UK and has deployed its technology in the UK, Japan, Italy and New Zealand. The company expanded to North America in 2022.

Reactive said it gives utilities and grid operators critical intel for maintaining resilience as they add renewables and DERs (distributed energy resources) and will continue its global expansion as more countries move to accelerate the transition to a zero-carbon power grid.

Image credit: iStock.com/BoripanC