ARENA added over 190 reports and files to the Knowledge Bank during the year. This attracted more interest than ever with over 57,000 unique file downloads — 34% more than 2020. The most popular items were:

• The Australian Bioenergy Roadmap Report
• Green hydrogen and ammonia feasibility studies from BP, Engie-Yara and Dyno Nobel
• Report on the State of DER Integration
• Global analysis of Vehicle to Grid EV technology

Our Knowledge Bank contains hundreds of documents across a wide variety of technologies and subjects, from hydrogen-burping bacteria, to zones for renewable energy. You can filter by category, year published, project location and report type to find the information you need.

Visit the Knowledge Bank 

Together with our funding recipients, we developed and shared in-depth knowledge on how to maintain grid stability as the proportion of renewable energy generation grows. In May, we hosted an Insights webinar on this topic that featured presentations from market regulators and ARENA-funded projects, including: 

• Powerlink’s Grid Forming Inverter study,
• Neoen’s Hornsdale Power Reserve Upgrade,
• Monash University Weak Grids Study and
• Transgrid’s Wallgrove Big Battery.

Image: ARENA Insights Webinar event
 

Watch the ARENA Insights Webinar on Advanced Inverters 

We are collecting detailed operational data on over 30 Ultra-Fast EV Charging stations installed around Australia as part of the Chargefox and Evie Networks projects.

The EV Ultra-Fast Charging Webinar presented a detailed analysis of the emerging data of particular interest to the growing EV industry.

Image: An EV charging.
 

Watch the ARENA Ultra-Fast Charging Data Analysis Webinar 

Together with the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), we launched the Generator Operations (GenOps) series. These reports present a thematic deep dive into the real-world lessons emerging from the 14 large-scale solar (LSS) projects that ARENA and the CEFC supported in 2016.  

Each report analyses detailed operational data from those early projects, as well as the growing number of wind and solar projects that followed.

The series will continue in 2022 with themes including the community aspects of these large projects, and the potential viability of retrofitting the projects with behind-the-meter storage.
 

Image: Moree Solar Farm. Source: The Fifth Estate

Read GenOps1:

• Large Scale Solar Operations 

Read GenOps2:

• Ramp Rates for Solar and Wind Generators on the NEM 

Read GenOps3:

• Negative Pricing and Bidding Behaviours on the NEM 

Rounding up its third year, members of the Distributed Energy Integration Program (DEIP) collaborated to progress initiatives relating to dynamic operating envelopes, interoperability and standards, and electric vehicle grid integration.

This network of government agencies, market authorities, industry and consumer associations works together with the aim of maximising the value of customers’ Distributed Energy Resources for all energy users.

• Watch the DEIP Public Forum 
• Read the latest DEIP outcomes report on ARENA’s website 

Bioenergy / Energy-from-waste

The BioDICE project investigated the feasibility of using biomass as a source of fuel carbon in direct injection carbon engines (DICE), to produce electricity with low greenhouse gas emissions for the overall fuel cycle.

• Read the BioDICE final report here.

Distributed Energy Resources

Project Symphony is a pilot project where customer distributed energy resources (DER) like rooftop solar, battery energy storage and other major household appliances will be orchestrated as a virtual power plant (VPP) to participate in a future energy market and unlock greater benefits for customers and the wider community.

• Read the project’s first Lessons Learnt Report here.

Solar PV R&D

An ANU team are tackling the problems of high cost and complexity of Silicon-Perovskite structures in order to realise the high efficiency solar devices that this technology offers.

• Read the ANU’s report here.

Concentrated Solar Thermal

RayGen’s flagship project will demonstrate their innovative solar-plus-storage technology. It will supply synchronous, dispatchable power where it is critically needed in the West Murray region of the National Electricity Market. 

• Read RayGen’s first Lessons Learnt Report here.

Visit ARENA's Knowledge Bank for more.