ARENA invests $953K in grid stability software

Renewable energy services company GridZync is receiving $953K from The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) to enhance and commercialise its Rezonance software.

The investment is part of ARENA’s Advancing Renewables Program, which focuses on optimising the transition to renewables.

GridZync’s software is designed to identify stability risks in grid-connected technologies as more renewables come online. Inverter-based resources (IBRs), such as solar farms, wind farms and battery storage systems, are increasingly replacing coal-fired power and introducing new challenges for grid stability.

Via their advanced power electronics-based interfaces to the grid, IBRs can interact with each other and with the grid in ways that traditional generators didn’t. These interactions can produce harmful oscillations that pose challenges to grid stability. As IBR penetration rises, these risks grow more complex and more frequent.

There’s a method for assessing these risks: impedance-based stability analysis (IBSA). It uses frequency-domain models to determine whether a grid configuration is stable and to identify which devices are contributing to problematic behaviour.

However, no commercially accessible tool currently exists that makes IBSA practical for the broad power engineering community. This limits proactive risk management and slows connection approvals for new renewable projects.

With Rezonance, GridZync intends to provide a software tool that makes IBSA practically accessible and more useable for power engineers with differing levels of experience. The company will work with industry partners throughout the project to test the product against real-world use cases.

By completion, GridZync plans to launch a commercially licensable version of Rezonance that is ready for use by system and network operators, consultants, and renewable energy developers.

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