The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has published the Engineering Roadmap FY2024 Priority Actions Report, which outlines the actions AEMO plans to take to help prepare the National Electricity Market (NEM) for the growing renewable transition.
The AEMO said as Australia increasingly observes new renewable energy milestones, completing the necessary engineering work will be paramount to enable secure and reliable electricity supplies during periods when there are no fossil fuelled generators online.
This report seeks to continue the work from the Engineering Roadmap to 100% Renewables, by providing transparency on the specific activities AEMO is progressing in 2023-24, while also providing an update on the extensive progress made in 2022-23 by AEMO and industry to increase preparedness.
AEMO Manager of Future Energy Systems, Chris Davies, said that readiness for 100 per cent instantaneous renewables is a critical enabler for being able to operate the power system regularly with high penetrations of renewables, in turn supporting the transition to a net zero energy system.
“The transition requires a concerted effort across industry, and this report summarises the major engineering and operational readiness activities that AEMO intends to progress in this next financial year,” Mr Davies said.
AEMO intends to make progress towards over 80 different actions throughout 2023-24, with this report spotlighting a subset of activities where AEMO is seeking to drive significant progress in the year ahead.
This includes activities where:
- AEMO believes significant uplift in effort is required to prepare for associated Roadmap preconditions
- Engagement with external stakeholders is crucial and not fully captured through other work programs
- Delayed progression may pose a risk to power system security in future
Based on these principles, the priority actions identified for 2023-24, cover four objectives:
- Enabling high penetrations of distributed energy resources (DER)
- Enabling new technologies to address system needs
- Conducting future power system studies
- Building operational readiness
AEMO is also seeking feedback on the Engineering Roadmap to 100 per cent Renewables program of work, and encourages stakeholders to provide input on the content included in the report, and how they would like to be engaged in the future.
This survey will be open to stakeholder feedback until 31 July 2023.
