First published JoNova: “… AEMO said the ever growing output from solar was posing an increasing threat to the safety and security of the grid …”
AEMO says emergency powers to switch off solar needed in every state amid ‘system collapse’ fears
By energy reporter Daniel Mercer
Topic:Energy Industry
Mon 2 DecThe body responsible for keeping the lights on in Australia’s biggest electricity grids wants emergency powers to switch off or throttle rooftop solar in every state to help cope with the daily flood of output from millions of systems.
In a report released on Monday morning, the Australian Energy Market Operator said “emergency backstop” powers were urgently needed to ensure solar installations could be turned down — or off — in extreme circumstances.
…
AEMO said the ever growing output from solar was posing an increasing threat to the safety and security of the grid because it was pushing out all other forms of generation that were needed to help keep the system stable.
And it warned that unless it had the power to reduce — or curtail — the amount of rooftop solar times, more drastic and damaging measures would need to be taken.
These could include increasing the voltage levels in parts of the poles-and-wires network to “deliberately” trip or curtail small-scale solar in some areas.
Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-02/aemo-demands-emergency-backstop-to-switch-off-solar/104670332
…
The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) is the industry body responsible for the stability of Australia’s East Coast electricity grid.
From the AEMO website;
Minimum operational demand
02/12/2024
The following quotes can be attributed to AEMO’s Executive General Manager – Operations, Michael Gatt.
Australia’s electricity system was originally designed for power to flow from large power stations through a network of substations and power lines into homes and businesses.
Today, electricity from millions of rooftop solar systems feed back into the grid, which can at times generate enough power to meet half of total demand across the National Electricity Market.
As the market operator, we’re aware that high contributions of rooftop solar coinciding with certain system conditions needs to be carefully managed to ensure electricity reliability and grid security while managing power system risks.
For several years, AEMO has flagged these emerging risks and with the support of state governments and network operators are developing appropriate emergency solutions.
AEMO’s ‘Supporting secure operation with high levels of distributed resources’ report provides stakeholders with a status assessment on some of the new capabilities required to securely operate the NEM in periods with high levels of generation from rooftop solar and low demand.
AEMO does not want to directly control people’s rooftop solar.
In rare circumstances AEMO may need to take action to secure the grid, such as directing off grid-scale generation, to solve these emergency events which often occur at the same time as unplanned generation and transmission outages.
However, after all these actions have been exhausted, the temporary management of rooftop solar by network operators under state government solar management programs may still be required although we expect this may only occur in very rare circumstances.
These actions assist in keeping the power system secure, while also enabling the growth of rooftop solar installations.
AEMO is supporting the continued uptake of rooftop solar, residential batteries and electric vehicles while maintaining reliable electricity support through a secure grid.
We’re doing this by contributing to new market designs, trials and research, which will continue through the National CER Roadmap, approved by Australia’s Energy Ministers in July.
The CER Roadmap sets out an overarching vision and plan to unlock CER at scale and identifies measures to “unleash the full potential of CER” by establishing the required mechanisms, tools and systems.
This includes measures to support ongoing power system security, particularly the requirement for backstop mechanisms to be in place by the end of 2025 for emergency response to ensure operational security when required.
It also includes reforms to increase the opportunities for market participation of CER, including through enhanced coordination, allowing customers to respond to market-based incentives which will also help meet the challenges of low operational demand.
Ends…
Background
State rooftop solar management programs: Queensland, South Australia, Western Australiaand Victoria.
Read more: https://aemo.com.au/newsroom/media-release/minimum-operational-demand
Spiking grid voltage, deliberately spiking grid voltage to trip safety systems seems insanely dangerous. Even a brief voltage excursion could start house fires.
Electronic devices are designed to run within a narrow band of voltage and frequency conditions. While some devices such as laptops and TVs are usually very tolerant of large deviations from the expected voltage band, other devices such as large electric motors, especially appliance motors such as clothes washing machine motors or electric clothes dryers, they might not be so tolerant.
In addition a voltage spike sufficient to trip solar panels could also trip house breakers, leading to food spoilage in refrigerators and freezers.
It is time to bring this insane rooftop solar experiment to an end. It clearly isn’t working, given the energy grid operator has suggested deliberately sabotaging grid voltage might be an acceptable emergency protocol to disconnect rooftop solar from the grid.
Update (EW): Brian provided a video which dates back to when Aussie politicians were proud of their ability to deliver affordable electricity.
Update (EW): stevekj found a reference to the AEMO plan to deliberately sabotage grid voltage to curtail excess rooftop solar on the AEMO website.
… If there are insufficient emergency backstop capabilities, alternative and even higher impact interventions may be needed, such as:
Read more (page 28): https://aemo.com.au/-/media/files/electricity/nem/planning_and_forecasting/transition-planning/aemo-2024-transition-plan-for-system-security.pdf?la=en
- Distribution voltage management – in some regions, it is possible to increase distribution voltages to the level required to deliberately trip/curtail DPV. This is a valuable backup mechanism to resecure the system if needed in rare emergency events but should not be used on a regular basis. It may require jurisdictional support to operationalise. …
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Some real issues here that don’t come together.
Let’s talk a little bit about frequency and voltage in a traditional ideal generator. At startup with no load, the generator is supplied input power to turn such that 60 Hz is generated (U.S.) and at the correct voltage. As a load is supplied, current is needed which slows the generator thus reducing the frequency of the output. More input power is supplied to bring the speed back to 60 Hz. That is why frequency is important. Voltage can be controlled by the excitation applied in the generator to a certain extent. However the load current being supplied and its effect on frequency is the important part of the system.
An important distinction here is that a generator does not “push” current into the grid, it “supplies” the current to the load. To “push” current would require the output voltage to increase which power plants try to closely monitor.
Now how about DC-AC inverters. First is frequency. A properly designed inverter should be able to independently control the output frequency regardless of the load. If necessary timing networks could be employed. Telephone and Internet companies use these to synchronize their digital networks and might be a source. That might be necessary to synchronize all the PV inverters.
Voltage regulation should not be a problem with today’s technology. Each inverter should have the ability to maintain a correct output voltage until it trips offline due to overload.
Now we come to the real problem. How do you control a multiplicity of power sources with no management capability. With the traditional grid a control center can say “Let’s up the power input to turbine 3 to increase the power output”. This way the supplied power to the demanded load is kept in sync.
But, what happens when you have a thousand individual generators all connected together? Who choses which one supplies an increased demand? Who decides which one cuts back? Can they all supply 1/1000th of an increased load? What occurs if their frequency varies by even 0.1 Hz? What occurs if synchronization is not exact where some inverters are leading in phase and some lagging and some are just wandering all over? Can anyone here add two sine waves out of sync by 180 degrees?
Not a pretty picture.
In the early 2000s there was a very large IEEE Standards working group developing a standard for distributed energy systems, there were (probably still are) a lot interests represented with hundreds people on the committee. The big problem is what they call “islanding”, which happens when the utility goes down yet the small generators (i.e. PV systems) continue to operate and supply power. They had to come up with automatic disconnect requirements that everyone could live with and were achievable with electronics. Not an easy problem. (IEEE 1547 if anyone is interested)
Remove the electricity from the grid and OZ will soon be carbon free.
That does seem to be the goal. Each house becoming its own nation, self contained energy, etc.
How better to divide society that to isolate everyone from everyone and everything else.
IRE – intermittent renewable energy – is inherently unstable. PV hits a peak near local noon, every day, cloudy or not, and wind sporadically does the same. Protecting the grid is obviously a critical requirement, even if the voltage spikes burn your house down. Most are not aware that $300 billion a year has been spent every year in the past decade to build the vastly more extensive and UNSTABLE grid system required in the IRE era. The cost of the grid CONTROL system is never mentioned, because grid control was far simpler under the old base power system. The $trillions wasted simply due to IRE, underscore the uselessness of the system as seen in the far higher prices of electricity in higher IRE countries. All the proposed batteries will not change the reality of fundamental instability of the IRE supplied grid system. It is built-in. Enjoy the ‘smart grid’.