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The energy transition in Australia is progressing, but for Australia to meet its carbon emission targets much more needs to happen, and to happen quickly. This is particularly so as the decarbonisation of other sectors of the economy, such as transport and agriculture, require electrification to remove carbon from their operations.
The result of the decarbonisation of the entire economy is that the scale of change in power systems will continue to rapidly accelerate over the coming decades.
CIGRE Australia chairman Dr Seán Mc Goldrick explains the quantum of the challenge.
“We have made great progress in decarbonising the existing generation in the power system in Australia, with renewables now a sizeable component of the generation mix. What we have not yet addressed is the incredible challenge of adding around a further six times today’s utility-scale wind and solar, and five times today’s consumer energy resources, over the next 25 years, and designing and operating the power system to manage that with the level of reliability that consumers have come to expect.”
Industry professionals know the size of the challenge, but also that we have the technical expertise to deliver the transition. A key element of that will be sharing knowledge on the evolution of our electric power systems.
CIGRE—knowledge creation and sharing
CIGRE, based in Paris since 1921, is the leading organisation worldwide for the creation and sharing of knowledge on electric power systems. With members in over 90 countries and formalised national committees in over 60, CIGRE’s purpose is the creation and sharing of knowledge.
As one of its largest and fastest growing national committees, CIGRE Australia takes up that challenge in Australia. Following its successful international Symposium in Cairns in late 2023, CIGRE Australia is hosting a suite of technical conferences in Adelaide from 2-4 September 2025 with the overarching theme ‘Shaping the Power Systems of Tomorrow’.
Open to members and non-members alike, this suite of conferences offers a unique opportunity for power systems experts to explore the various challenges we face in delivering the transition and to learn from each other.
An international perspective, applied locally
In many facets of the energy transition Australia is acknowledged as world leading. Our penetration of rooftop solar PV remains very high by international standards meaning we have been exposed to the technical challenges that creates, and we have provided the innovative responses necessary to manage LV and MV power systems under high in-feed conditions.
Each electric power system globally has its own characteristics of course—and as these systems transition there are opportunities to learn about how other countries approach similar challenges. In April this year Spain and Portugal suffered a system black. Since that time, there has been much discussion and speculation on the causes, given that the Spanish system also has a high degree of penetration of renewable generation.
CIGRE Australia’s unique access to its peer’s technical experts around the globe means that the critical learnings from Spain can be brought back to power system practitioners in Australia, and more so presenting those learnings through a lens applicable to the Australian power system and context.
Complementing planned workshops on major system disturbances in Spain and Peru, delegates at the event will be able to hear a truly international keynote perspective on the energy transition from CIGRE president Professor Konstantin Papailiou.
Other keynotes include an update on the draft recommendations of the NEM Wholesale Market Settings Review by review chair Associate Professor Tim Nelson and a forward-looking perspective on the scale and nature of the local transition by incoming AEMO executive general manager of system design Nicola Falcon.
A focus on technical content
Many of the challenges with delivering the energy transition are technical in nature, but most energy conferences are quite general in content. As CIGRE Australia CEO Peter McIntyre says, “It is critical that we provide access to high quality technical information to our members and other power system practitioners in Australia. The conferences will be unashamedly technical and absolutely jam packed full of relevant content.”
Some of the major areas of focus will be protection, automation and control, the connection and control of demand side resources, power system technical performance with high renewables penetration and inverter-based equipment, harmonics and power quality, system data and digital twins and the interaction between electricity markets and power systems.
McIntyre continued, “With around 170 presentations or workshops there is an immense amount of material to be discussed related to delivering the energy transition. There is simply no other conference in Australia offering this breadth or depth of technical content.”
For more information visit cigreconference.com.au
