Back on 20th July 2023, Jonathon Dyson wrote the article ‘Let’s talk about inertia’ as part of the process of focusing readers on an increasingly important power system parameter.
1) This is something that we’ve been highlighting in Appendix 1 in GenInsights Quarterly Updates reports … and will surely feature when we come to reviewing 2024 Q1; and
2) It’s something AEMO has been publishing at a regional level for a shorter period of time.
With a trip of four large synchronous units in Victoria (all supplying large amounts of inertia) it’s no surprise to see that inertia levels fell significantly this afternoon in Victoria:
Paul was one of the founders of Global-Roam in February 2000. He is currently the CEO of the company and the principal author of WattClarity. Writing for WattClarity has become a natural extension of his work in understanding the electricity market, enabling him to lead the team in developing better software for clients.
Before co-founding the company, Paul worked as a Mechanical Engineer for the Queensland Electricity Commission in the early 1990s. He also gained international experience in Japan, the United States, Canada, the UK, and Argentina as part of his ES Cornwall Memorial Scholarship.
Inertia is an important concept to understand as the technology mix in the NEM evolves during the energy transition. In this article, Jonathon Dyson talks about the importance of inertia and highlights an example of a specific incident where we observed relatively low levels of inertia in the NEM.
Inertia levels, measured in megawatt-seconds (MWs), dropped towards the targeted secure operating level and the minimum threshold level on 12 November, 2024.
Last week’s notable under-frequency load shedding in Great Britain following what appears to be the loss of two generation units in quick succession prompts me to publish some of the analysis of aggregate levels of inertia supplied by synchronous generators in South Australia as part of the Generator Report Card.
On Friday 14th October we saw a significant system event in Tasmania – with storms downing power links, leading to large (530MW) loss of load and trip of Basslink. In this article we take a first look at the sequence of events…
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