ARENA funded technology could be a game changer

Renewables - Hybrid solar and wind farm

ARENA funded project breaks ground with a technology that will help expedite the pace of the clean energy transition.

Technology commonly used in the automotive, aerospace and defence industries is breaking new ground for the clean energy transition.

The project will help in the renewable space and test the real-world limits, stability and control systems of large-scale renewable projects before they are built using hardware and not just software

Its recent success, in a real-world test with a 50MW solar project, shows it could become the industry standard in accelerating commissioning of large-scale renewable energy projects into the grid.

Dubbed the pre-commissioning platform, by the University of Queensland’s (UQ) Dr Richard Yan and partner EPEC Group (EPEC), it marks a milestone for renewable energy.

The technology helps change the way tests for large-scale renewable energy projects are done before being built into the grid. It also works to eliminate several delays in the process and increase the expediency of the connection and delivery of projects for the clean energy transition.

Where it began

Dr Richard Yan is an expert in the field of renewable energy integration to power grids, big data mining in power systems and network strength and stability analysis.

He’s collaborated on a range of projects in the power industry for the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), Powerlink Queensland, Energy Queensland, EPEC group and the list goes on and on.

It’s safe to say he’s been on the frontline of the renewable energy transition, particularly in the field of integration of renewables into the National Energy Market (NEM), commonly known as the grid.

When Dr Yan was working on these systems, he noticed there was an issue with how renewable projects were testing their systems before building the infrastructure. The models weren’t being properly tested and validated against hardware until after they were built.

The issue would cause massive delays, cost blowout and even de-incentivised investors from further pursuing renewable projects because of the difficulties.

According to Dr Yan, the biggest issue was around real-world performance versus what was modelled early on for the renewable projects.

Idiosyncrasies and imperfections would be found in early testing to real-world performance, which could best be resolved through HIL technology, according to Dr Yan.

Because of these problems, when the projects were built, known as the commissioning phase, they began to run into several issues.

“There’s an event not predicted by the software,” Dr Yan said. These issues included instability to voltage supply from the renewables into the grid and incompatibility.

If projects continue to face delays and don’t work, they won’t be functional, and this can cause massive chain failures and slow the pace of net zero.

“We realised there is a really big problem, and the HIL technology was needed for the industry,” Dr Yan said.

Mark Parker from EPEC then came to Dr Yan.

EPEC is an electrical engineering contractor that manages ‘connections to the NEM through end-to-end service solutions from pre-enquiry to connection and registration, testing, compliance and commercial operations.’

Parker and the EPEC team had been noticing the massive issues caused by the failures of the software tests during the pre-commissioning phase of large-scale renewable projects.

He approached Dr Yan and said, “How about you help us?”

Thus began the work of Dr Yan and HIL with EPEC as a partner.

Their idea, create a technology that tests the real-world limits, stability and control systems of large-scale renewable projects with hardware, not just software. By doing a real-world test, not theoretical, the technology helps reveal issues before projects are built. This removes a lot of delays and cost blow outs typical in the standard currently in use for the pre-commission phase of renewable projects.

Funding

Initially, Dr Yan and EPEC had gone to other potential funding pipelines for their HIL idea.

“I took it down as a consulting project initially but later realised this is doable and will help the industry,” Dr Yan said.

Dr Yan tried to get funding from other areas but was unsuccessful.

“We then realised ARENA could be a good option because they are working in this space,” Dr Yan said.

In 2022, ARENA saw the value in the technology. Dr Yan and EPEC received a $498,000 grant to conduct a study to measure the viability of HIL in the renewable pre-commissioning phase. The study is called Platform for Solar Farm Pre-Commissioning.

As part of the funding, UQ released its Final Knowledge Sharing Report in March 2024 to much success. They found the HIL technology they developed produced more efficient results than the current software used during the pre-commissioning phase of large-scale renewable energy projects, particularly solar.

If successful in its push to commercial application, HIL technology could set the bar for a new industry standard in Australia’s renewable sector.

First commercial use

This year, Dr Yan and EPEC utilised the HIL technology for a 50MW solar farm project.

The results were very promising.

The test found more than 15 issues with “integration, modelling and hardware design of the control system,” for the solar project, according to a press release from EPEC. All the problems found came before the solar project’s connection to the grid.

EPEC found the time saved for getting the solar project to connect to the grid was around 5 months. It also made cost the blow out for the contractor reduce.

Significance

For large scale generators to connect to the electricity grid, they need to comply with strict Generator Performance Standards. This is done through vigorous power system models, which must be verified on site.

According to Dr Yan, the issue here is these tests aren’t practical and cause massive delays in the commissioning phase. These delays slow the clean energy transition and de-incentivise investors from continuing with projects, which can lead to liquidated damages and millions lost. The knock-on effect to the clean energy transition could prove problematic.

The impracticality of current tests used by manufacturers; they are working in a software-only vacuum. They aren’t using hardware in these phases to efficiently understand any real-world complications once the project connects to the grid.

HIL technology is the first platform to use hardware in its testing during the pre-commissioning phase. It then uses the software in conjunction with the hardware, to “scale-up the model to test real-world simulations to find issues before commissioning,” Dr Yan said.

Another issue, according to Dr Yan, is hybrid projects.

What this means is large-scale renewable projects can often have two manufacturers. Each manufacturer is developing different components. For example, in solar projects there is a requirement for batteries to store solar energy to account for intermittent periods when the sun isn’t shining. The batteries will store the energy and for use when grid demand requires. Another manufacturer will develop the solar panel infrastructure separate from the batteries.

“They will conduct their tests in an isolated environment only for their equipment. So, say the batteries are from one manufacturer and the solar panels are from another r. They will test their products in a limited view and only do what they need to do for clearance. But when it goes into the real-world there all kinds of compatibility issues and this causes serious problems in efficiency.” Dr Yan Said.

The HIL technology by Yan and EPEC will account for these differences in its test phase before projects are built out.

With the speed of the transition, the findings from Dr Yan show HIL technology is critical to mitigate the delays and issues caused by current practices.

One standard for all

Dr Yan’s hope is that HIL technology will become the one-stop shop that renewable manufacturers will utilise in the pre-commissioning phase. The focus is particularly on solar, wind and battery developers.

According to Dr Yan, the benefits of the pre-commissioning platform is it allows them to act as an independent service provider. They can smooth out the commissioning process prior to development, by identifying discrepancies in the model early on.

“We take a neutral role, and we try to find the problems for the manufacturers, and we help them integrate rather than leaving it up to them using inefficient software,” Dr Yan said.

He further added, that using HIL will help reduce any cost inefficiencies in poor pre-commissioning planning and chances of commissioning delays for solar projects. Avoiding this is critical as we look to a renewable energy future.

ARENA

New technologies like UQ’s pre-commissioning platform, will help accelerate renewable energy penetration across the grid in-line with ARENA’s ambitions to support Australia’s transition to net zero.

As HIL moves to more commercial application, the technology and its success is an important milestone to Australia’s clean energy future and ARENA’s work in this space. As mentioned before, the platform will help to eliminate delays in delivering large-scale renewable energy projects compared to the standards and tests in today’s current market.

ARENA’s hope is that manufacturers in the large-scale renewable project space utilise technology like HIL to connect them to the grid without delay.

Tags:
ARENAclean energyEnergy Transition
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