Australian switchgear engineering company NOJA Power celebrated a win in the Queensland division of Engineer Australia’s Engineering Excellence Awards.
 

Read the full press release 
 
With ARENA funding, NOJA Power is developing smart switchgear that will monitor energy flow including voltage, current and phase angles on distribution networks. The switchgear includes phasor monitoring units capable of capturing granular real-time data up to 100 times more frequently than SCADA monitoring.

The project is a world-first deployment of Synchrophasor technology in a distribution grid and will provide a variety of safety and reliability benefits.

Credit: NOJA Power

Read the insights from the project report 

TransGrid is exploring the feasibility of a new commercial model that offers firm access rights to transmission infrastructure to support the development and connection of new renewable energy projects in the New England Renewable Energy Zone in NSW.

The ‘New England Connection Capacity Auction’ has completed its first stage, receiving 18 expressions of interest for a range of synchronous and non-synchronous renewable technologies seeking to secure access rights to transmission. The proposals equated to ~6.9 GW of renewable energy capacity - almost five times the full capacity the transmission can enable.

This level of market interest demonstrates that there is merit in Transmission Network Service Providers proposing innovative commercial models to address challenges in project development as project developers are willing to engage in a competitive process to secure access to enabling transmission infrastructure.
 

Read the project report

Green hydrogen at $2/kg ‘stretch goal’ plausible over the next decade: ANU paper

Falling prices for renewable energy generation means that ‘green hydrogen’ produced from electrolysis could achieve the Australian Government’s goal of H2 at A$2/kg over the next decade, according to a new paper by members of the Australian National University’s Zero-Carbon Energy for the Asia-Pacific Grand Challenge.

Read the ANU paper

Business Renewables Centre Australia’s Buying Power webinar
 

On November 25, the Business Renewables Centre Australia will present insights from their soon to be released annual State of the Market report, the most comprehensive survey of Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) Buyers in Australia. With the help of an expert panel, the webinar will seek to answer the question, 'Is now a good time to do a PPA?'.

2020 has been a record year for Corporate PPAs with the highest volume of deals recorded. PPAs have become an increasingly popular way of reducing emissions and exposure to volatile energy prices, and cutting costs. However, are we entering a new phase and lesser known territory?

See the previous BRC A events 

Register for the event 

Concentrated solar thermal and solar PV

• This evaluation covers the Commercialisation of R&D Funding Initiative Pilot run in partnership with the CSIRO’s ON Prime Program.
   
• The first Knowledge Sharing report from Transgrid New England Renewable Energy Zone addresses the knowledge and information gained during the Expression of Interest phase of the New England Connection Capacity Auction (NECCA).
   
• Two reports from the Solar Energy Transformation Program (SETuP) on the operational performance of the 10 MWof utility-scale solar arrays installed across 25 remote NTcommunities.

Distributed Energy Resources

• The latest report by the Australian National University for the Zepben Evolve project provides a detailed introduction to the concept of operating envelopes — what they are, how they’re calculated, potential benefits, and implementation considerations.
   
• The Dynamic Limits DER Feasibility Study is a great follow-up to the ANU report. It reviews existing and potential approaches for decentralised control of DER assets, particularly on regional, rural and remote network sections.
   
• This preliminary report explains technologies, user interaction points, data storage, configuration details and data structures of the API implementation for SA Power Networks’ Advanced VPP Grid Integration project.