Why is hydropower important for deep storage?

Entura’s Donald Vaughan, Technical Director, Power, discusses the role of hydropower in deep storage, and how this will become increasingly important in a future renewables landscape. This clip is lifted from an Entura webinar to celebrate Global Hydropower Day on October 11, 2022, where our Technical Leaders and Executive Team came together to discuss the future of hydropower.

If you would like to discuss how Entura can help you with your hydropower project, please contact us.

About the author

Donald Vaughan is Entura’s Technical Director, Power. He has more than 25 years of experience providing advice on regulatory and technical requirements for generators, substations and transmission systems. Donald specialises in the performance of power systems. His experience with generating units, governors and excitation systems provides a helpful perspective on how the physical electrical network behaves and how it can support the transition to a high renewables environment.

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What role does hydropower play in the race to net zero?

Dr Amanda Ashworth, Entura’s Director of Strategy, Sales and Commercial, discusses the role that hydropower plays in the race to net zero. This discussion took place during the webinar held by Entura to celebrate Global Hydropower Day on 11 October 2022, where our Executive Team and Technical Leaders came together to explore the future of hydropower in the renewable energy landscape.

If you would like to discuss how Entura can help you with your hydropower project, please contact us.

About the author

Dr Amanda Ashworth holds a PhD, Graduate Diploma in Environmental Studies and Bachelor of Arts. She brings together Entura’s corporate marketing, sales and commercial functions, providing direction to these teams and areas of the business, and leads strategy development and achievement. She is also the manager of the Entura clean energy and water institute. Amanda has 25 years’ experience in multi-disciplinary research and practice on a wide range of environmental, social and economic topics. She has spoken at numerous international conferences and is the author of several peer-reviewed papers.

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How can an Owner’s Engineer smooth the progress of a renewable energy project?

Throughout the renewable energy sector, there are plenty of examples where decisions made during the planning and procurement phases have caused difficulty during construction and affected future operations. A smoother construction process is to everyone’s advantage – avoiding cost blow-outs and time over-runs, and a lot of unnecessary stress and sweat.

An experienced Owner’s Engineer can provide an extra level of continuity and foresight to help reduce risk and minimise surprises. Having independent eyes focused on ‘doing it right’ from the earliest stages is an investment in keeping a project on the path to success.

Here we discuss a few simple and practical opportunities where an Owner’s Engineer can make a meaningful difference to progress.

Providing critical continuity

Continuity during the development lifecycle of a renewable energy project can sometimes be difficult to maintain. Transitions occur when project ownership changes, people come and go, government policy shifts, and when the project transitions from one development phase to the next. An Owner’s Engineer who is part of the project through all the phases of development can add a valuable perspective and source of knowledge to the project team through these transitions.

The Owner’s Engineer can apply industry-wide learnings and experience to identify risks and detect opportunities to maximise value in both the immediate detail of the project as well as later stages of the development’s lifecycle. This increases the likelihood that the transition between lifecycle phases – such as when a project advances to construction, or the handover of a newly constructed asset to an operations team – will be smooth and successful.

Maintaining order and good process

In a project where schedule risk is a big concern to all involved, sometimes good process falls to the wayside. The appropriate order of studies, design validation and construction can be impeded by a desire to get construction underway as soon as possible. Good forethought, data, modelling, discussion and design validation take time, but they are essential inputs for a successful outcome. A rush to get construction underway before this process is concluded increases the chances of re-work being required – a risk that’s always best avoided.

Identifying knowledge gaps

Having an independent Owner’s Engineer involved in a project from the beginning of the development and design process means that there is an independent expert who can review early technical studies, and identify where there may be gaps in the analysis. These early technical studies ― such as geotechnical studies for foundation and road design, and soil thermal resistivity testing to inform the right choices for cable sizing and trenching ― can have major impacts on the cost and effort expended during the design process, and the type of design that is required for a successful project. If these studies aren’t completed early enough, or thoroughly enough, there will be higher risks for the EPC contractor bidding on a project, hence higher cost. There may also be delays in the design process and at critical construction stages, with costly ramifications.

Thinking through logistical constraints at planning application stage

Construction of a wind farm, solar farm or hybrid renewable project is always a logistical challenge. For example, wind turbine components are massive, and getting bigger all the time. Rural roads are rarely of the width, camber and capacity to handle the large vehicles needed to carry materials, components or machinery. They may also not cope well with the volume of truck movements required. Community preferences and planning constraints can also limit the number of truck movements to and from sites per day.

Another important consideration in the construction of large renewable energy projects is how to move cranes around the site. In the case of a wind farm, will it be more effective to choose a crane that can be disassembled after erecting each turbine, moved in sections, and reassembled at the next turbine site? Or will it be quicker and cheaper to drive a crane between turbines? Given the potential for the width of the crane to overflow the width of the local roads, such a decision needs to take into account the potential for additional environmental approvals for a wider area of disturbance.

These challenges need to be carefully considered as early as possible in the planning application stage. Time and effort spent on the planning application can make a big difference to the ultimate project outcome. As the project progresses, clear sequencing and communication is vital for keeping things moving smoothly while also adhering to the constraints of construction and transport conditions.

Writing and enforcing clear specifications

A project’s technical specifications and the contractor’s response to them ultimately determine the end quality of the project. For both the owner and the contractor, it is vital that specifications are unambiguous and reflect the owner’s technical requirements and desired quality for the project. The Owner’s Engineer can help improve specifications based on their experience, for example specifying what sort of fixings can be used to hang cables below the solar panels, thus impacting long-term lifetime and maintenance costs.

When it comes to following specifications during the design and construction process, strict is good from the owner’s perspective. If the Owner’s Engineer rigorously enforces the specifications from the start, it sets the tone and expectations for the rest of the construction process and is likely to result in better project outcomes and fewer issues arising down the track.

Identifying safety issues and opportunities for improvement

An Owner’s Engineer brings a breadth of experience to a project as well as a clear pair of eyes and the ability to see the details as well as the bigger picture. The Owner’s Engineer is therefore well placed to identify potential safety issues and suggest improvements throughout design and construction. The Owner’s Engineer is involved in all stages of design, so is able to suggest safety improvements during safety-in-design and hazardous operations workshops. This can improve the chances of having issues of construction sequencing, construction safety or operational safety issues raised early in the design stages.

Construction inspections are often undertaken by a regular team member as well as a range of specialists. The regular team member creates continuity and the ability to compare practices on site over time. The targeted inspections by specialists focus fresh eyes on any potential issues arising during key milestones of construction.

Bringing a unique perspective

In our experience, the Owner’s Engineer can play a very valuable role in any project: helping to minimise risks such as construction delays and difficulties and maximise opportunities to achieve ‘best for project’ outcomes. The Owner’s Engineer brings a unique perspective: the ability to see a project from all angles, to maintain an independent view, and to filter everything through the lens of experience.

At Entura, we’re privileged to work with specialists who have been involved in both the design and operation of many power and water assets across their careers. They have worked with assets over the full lifecycle, so their insights stem from deep real-world experience. This ‘owner-operator’ perspective is not common among consultants, and we’re proud to apply it to help our clients get the best from their projects.

If you would like to discuss how Entura can help you with your renewable energy project, please contact us.

About the authors

Kate Hammerton is a Renewable Energy Engineer with a passion for hybrid energy systems and isolated micro-grids. She is involved in managing multi-disciplinary teams as the Owner’s Engineer on utility-scale renewable energy construction projects across Australia and the Indo-Pacific region, including the Agnew Hybrid Renewable Project, the Rottnest Island Water and Renewable Energy Nexus Project (WREN), Antarctica New Zealand’s Scott Base redevelopment at Ross Island, Tasmania’s Cattle Hill and Granville Harbour wind farms, and implementation of 14 MW of battery systems in Tonga.

Andrew Wright is a Specialist Renewable Energy Engineer at Entura. He has more than 15 years of experience in the renewable energy sector spanning resource assessment, site identification, equipment selection (wind and solar), development of technical documentation and contractual agreements, operational assessments and owner’s/lender’s engineering services. He has an in-depth understanding of the energy industry in Australia, while his international consulting experience includes New Zealand, Antarctica, China, India, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Micronesia.

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Getting your renewable energy project through planning and approvals

The planning and approvals system is complex, and its potential impact on the cost, timeframe and overall success of your renewable energy or storage project should never be underestimated.

Investing time and energy in planning for project approvals makes it more likely that your project will get off the drawing board and into reality. The following principles can help you smooth the process and avoid common pitfalls.

Understand constraints and impacts

The planning system tends not to differentiate between various forms of renewable energy generation, constraining all forms due to the perception and experience of those forms with greater perceived impacts (such as wind farms). Yet each project is unique, as is every piece of land – so each development will bring different values, impacts and benefits into play.

Getting the earliest possible understanding of the environmental and approval constraints over the development site will help reduce risk and avoid a later re-design.

All developments have potential impacts. Communities may be concerned about potential impacts on human health, biodiversity, heritage impacts, visual amenity, noise, changes in land use, construction impacts, just to name a few. However, it is generally ecology and heritage that make or break a project because there may be underlying regulatory requirements associated with existing overlays that prohibit or limit development.

Particularly in the Commonwealth jurisdiction, but increasingly across all state jurisdictions, developers must clearly demonstrate how the project has avoided and reduced impacts, rather than merely offsetting them by purchasing parcels of land elsewhere. Some states actually require the developer’s option analysis process to be documented. Only when the authorities are satisfied that the project has actively avoided and reduced impacts, will they negotiate what mitigation methods are preferable.

Communities are often concerned about visual amenity, so this analysis should be done early as part of identifying ‘red flags’ or constraints. When used properly, visual impact assessment can be a powerful way to design sensitively and responsibly, reducing impacts on views.

The overall impact assessment often takes into account the context of the new development, such as whether it is in pristine environment or existing built-up or industrial areas. An increasing trend is to redevelop brownfield sites for renewable energy or storage projects, instead of focusing solely on greenfield prospects. There is enormous potential to re-use existing infrastructure, former industrial sites or degraded sites, such as mine sites which are no longer viable or operational or former thermal power station sites. This can complement the existing management and rehabilitation regime for these sites which often have very poor environmental conditions, making projects rewarding for the developer and the community.

Get to grips with the regulatory landscape

Depending on the scale, location and potential impacts of the project, approvals may be required at the Commonwealth level (through the operation of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999), the state level (through the implementation of state environmental protection legislation), and the local level (through the implementation of a local development control plan or planning scheme).

These three levels interact differently in each state and for different processes. Some states have very streamlined and integrated approvals processes for large-scale projects which can coordinate Commonwealth requirements and facilitate local government discussions, making the process easier for the proponent or consultant. In other states, consultants often coordinate the different levels of processes, navigating the greater potential for conflicting or onerous requirements across the Commonwealth, state and local level.

Don’t launch into writing the approvals document without first conducting a mapping exercise and developing an approvals strategy. The approvals strategy helps map out all Commonwealth, state and local government requirements across each project component (e.g. a transmission line on a road reserve will often have different environmental values and require different approvals than a transmission line across a farm paddock). This will help you understand what approvals will likely be required and where dependencies exist. Your approvals strategy should be a live document, reviewed whenever there are changes to the project or legislation.

Building a transparent and honest relationship with the regulator/s is a worthy investment, and a consultant can lead this relationship for you. By listening to the regulator/s, paying attention to their advice, and changing the project’s design accordingly, a developer may be able to pre-empt or avoid conditions being applied to the project.

Develop a solid submission

Once the approval requirements are confirmed, detailed technical studies are essential for clearly demonstrating that the issues are understood and that the development (and any mitigation or management measures) is appropriate.

Target the application documentation to match and address the requirements of the relevant development control document, drawing on the conclusion of the technical studies. Include a summary of the proposal that identifies the key issues and mitigation measures, as well as the detailed technical studies underpinning the planning assessment.

Manage conditions

When permits are issued, it is common for there to be a number of conditions requiring further actions or additional documentation. Once you have a permit, create a conditions management plan to lay out clearly what all parties involved in the project need to do. Determine when the conditions apply (e.g. pre-construction, construction, post-construction or during operations) and who should be responsible. This will reduce the risk of not complying, which may be an oversight but could result in action by the responsible authority or, in some cases, lapsing of the permit.

Take the community with you, right from the start

It is important to differentiate between planning for and planning with communities. Those who will be impacted – whether positively or negatively, and over the short or long term – need to be involved in the process. A developer, owner or operator should identify and meet as many different stakeholders in the community as possible to get to know their individual interests and needs.

Engaging with the host community early in the development stages is key to a successful project and developers may be required to demonstrate that they have done so, even before submitting a permit application. This will help assure authorities (and potential buyers) that the project has a ‘social licence’ to operate.

By engaging early, the developer will have time to explain how the technology works, outline the construction process, and conduct a social risk assessment. Engagement should preferably be face-to-face and consistent. People are far more likely to accept projects when they feel that they have been included, heard and respected.

A particular consideration for large-scale developments is that sites are often located in areas outside of council jurisdiction, some of which are state-owned and can be subject to existing leasing arrangements. More remote areas also have greater potential to involve existing Native Title rights. Planning with genuine respect and acknowledgement of Indigenous communities is crucial, but often undervalued. First Nations/traditional owner groups should not be treated like any other stakeholder but as a land-owner (because they are, and governments are increasingly recognising this).

The task of building the community’s confidence in a project is sometimes difficult. The best approach is to communicate any foreseeable short-term and long-term impacts as early as possible and in an open and non-defensive manner. Listening to the community and working together to identify social and environmental risks will help build trust between the project team and stakeholders, and result in a development the community are proud of.

Give your project the beginning it deserves

Ultimately, there’s nothing to be gained by cutting corners or rushing these processes. Your best chance of planning success is through exploring and understanding – at the very earliest opportunity– the development control provisions, permits, consents and the levels of assessment that are required, obtaining high-quality and comprehensive specialist studies, and getting off on the right foot with the project’s stakeholder and community. Your project and your reputation will benefit from doing at least what is required and, preferably, even more. What you put into your ‘once upon a time’ will dictate whether you can reach a ‘happily ever after’.

If you would like to discuss how Entura can help you with your environmental or planning project, please contact us.

About the author

Bunfu Yu is an Environmental Planner with experience across multiple Australian jurisdictions, including Commonwealth, Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania and Queensland. She advises on a variety of land use and development issues, and scopes environmental and planning projects with a focus on water, energy and electricity infrastructure for a range of clients, including private developers, state utility providers and government agencies. She has qualifications in planning and science, is a sessional lecturer at the University of Tasmania, and serves as a committee member for the Planning Institute of Australia Tasmanian Division and a member of the National Policy and Advocacy Committee of the Planning Institute of Australia.

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Keeping close tabs on your dams

Access to quality long-term records is crucial for dam safety. Read what our specialists have to say about keeping your records under control.

The ANCOLD (Australian National Committee on Large Dams) guideline on dam safety management recommends regular reviews on different timescales – including routine inspections undertaken by the operator (daily to monthly), intermediate inspections by a dams engineer (annually), comprehensive inspections undertaken every five years by a dams engineer and other specialists (e.g. mechanical engineers specialising in gates and valves), and dam safety reviews at least every 20 years. For these less frequent dam safety reviews, the ability to access quality long-term records is crucial.

Because dams are such large structures with a very long service life, they need to be reviewed regularly to ensure that any community risks are mitigated appropriately. Dam safety reviews assess the current condition and performance of the dam in depth, and reassess the design and construction of the dam against modern standards.

When the time comes to conduct a dam safety review, dam owners need good records at their fingertips. Poor recordkeeping can lead to significant extra costs and time to conduct the review, but can also compromise a dam owner’s duty of care.

To properly analyse the performance of a dam and assess it against modern design and construction criteria, the dam engineer needs a thorough understanding of the original design and construction, any modifications to the dam since its original build, and a complete set of surveillance and monitoring data.

For some dam owners, when the time comes to complete a dam safety review, all or some of the records are missing – they may have been lost or destroyed through corporate restructures or a failure to understand the importance of the historical records, or the records may never have been created at all.

Which records are important?

In our work as dam safety consultants, we’ve encountered numerous cases in which poor recordkeeping – across many areas and disciplines – has resulted in costs for our clients. The following are critical records to keep in good order and close to hand.

Hydrological records

Records from stream flow and rainfall gauges in the dam catchment provide key hydrological information for dam safety reviews. The streamflow data can be used directly to statistically analyse the probability of the more frequent floods. It can also be used to calibrate rainfall runoff models used to estimate extreme floods for which dam spillways need to be designed. Without this data, flood studies are more difficult because data needs to be extrapolated from nearby catchments. This not only adds cost, but also reduces the reliability of the data, which may potentially lead to oversizing or undersizing the spillway.

Dam break and consequence assessment records

In Australia, dams are classified according to the consequences of failure – from very low (minimal impact on the community, environment and dam owner’s business) to extreme (catastrophic impact on the community, environment and dam owner’s business). The consequence categories are used to define the level of design (e.g. spillway capacity), the surveillance and monitoring requirements and, in some states of Australia, the regulatory requirements. Where these studies are not available, ‘rule of thumb’ methods may be used to estimate the inundation extent as an interim step, but much more confidence can be obtained by using a flood hydraulic modelling package with good survey data. These studies should be reviewed regularly for currency, especially when development is occurring in the downstream catchment.

Geological and geotechnical records

A detailed understanding of the geology of the dam foundations is essential for assessing the risk of excessive leakage (piping), the presence of any low-strength zones that could cause instability, and the potential for landslides around the reservoir that could cause a wave able to overtop the dam. Investigations undertaken before construction as well as mapping and recording of the foundation during construction provide the best possible information for assessing these potential failure modes.

When these records aren’t available, it is often necessary to undertake extensive and expensive geological investigations into the foundation of the dam, usually while the dam is operational. Such investigations need to be carefully planned to preserve the safety of the dam.

The starting point is review of existing geological records of the site, including geological maps, aerial photographs/satellite images and geological/geotechnical reports from nearby locations. This should be followed by geological mapping to confirm the information obtained from the desktop search, including the rock types and joint and defect orientation spacing. From this, a preliminary geological model of the site can be developed. To reduce the uncertainty of the model, intrusive test pitting and drilling investigations can be conducted. Careful consideration of the dam safety risks of undertaking these investigations is needed, including contingency plans to deal with unexpected conditions (e.g. high-pressure water intersected in boreholes or instability of ground around test pits). ANCOLD has produced a very good guideline on geotechnical investigations of dams, their foundations and appurtenant structures, which should be considered an essential guide for dam owners.

Design records

If records of original design information are unavailable, the dam safety reviewer won’t be able to fully understand the designer’s intent and assumptions. The information required includes the design drawings showing the overall arrangement and key dimensions, as well as the specifications and the design report. If drawings aren’t available or are illegible due to poor quality scans, detailed surveys of the structure may be required to determine the actual constructed geometry. To assess the stability of the dam, the material properties of the dam will be required; but if no data is available, sampling and laboratory testing may be needed.

Construction records

To understand the types of defects that may be present in the dam, it’s important to know how the dam was constructed, whether it was actually constructed to the design, and what issues were encountered during construction. Key construction records include construction reports detailing progress, changes to the design and issues; results of quality testing; as-constructed drawings or mark-ups on the design drawings; and photographs of the construction process. If these records are not available, it may be necessary to confirm as-constructed details through survey, sampling and laboratory testing.

Surveillance and monitoring records

Time-series data – such as regular inspection reports, photographs and instrumentation readings – are invaluable in establishing if there are trends or changes over time that may indicate deterioration of the dam. Without these long term records, it can be difficult to assess whether observed features are longstanding (e.g. present since construction) and what recent developments may indicate about the condition of the dam. Without the full time-series of monitoring data, it can be difficult to observe trends and to understand the relationship between various performance parameters (e.g. leakage versus reservoir level).

Keeping your records under control

If adequate records can’t be located, a dams engineer will need to spend a great deal of time searching archives or undertaking investigations to build a historical picture of the design and construction of the dam in order to assess its safety. When records are well managed, dam owners can save time, money and frustration. To keep your records under control, make sure that they are:

• as complete as practical – which may require extensive archive searches and investigations to fill in the gaps
• securely stored (electronically as well as the original paper records) and retained for the long term (so investigations don’t have to be repeated)
• readily retrievable through efficient indexing and archiving systems.

A good dam may outlast generations of engineers, operators and owners. This makes recordkeeping a fundamental part of maintaining the safety and performance of the dam over its long service life and a key responsibility of every dam owner as part of your duty of care.

About the author

Paul Southcott has more than 34 years of experience in civil and dam engineering, as well as expertise in geotechnical, foundation, structural, hydraulic and hydropower engineering. Paul’s dam engineering experience spans geotechnical and hydrological investigation; feasibility and options studies; concept, preliminary and detailed design; engineering assessment, consequence assessment and risk assessment; safety reviews; monitoring and surveillance; and emergency planning. He has extensive experience in dam risk assessment and was a member of the ANCOLD committees that issued the Guideline on Consequence Categories for Dams in 2012 and drafted the Guideline on Geotechnical Investigations for Dams. Paul pioneered the development of a dam risk assessment methodology for concrete-faced rockfill dams (CFRD). He was the Engineers Australia (Tasmania Division) Engineer of the Year in 2021.

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Multipurpose dams: maximum value for money?

When a dam is being considered, there’s usually a primary purpose. But are there also secondary purposes that can benefit the local and wider community? Have you thought about the potential additional economic development that can stem from a multipurpose dam? 

A simulation of Alaoa Dam in Samoa

Multipurpose dams combine two or more functions of traditional single-purpose dams into one dam infrastructure project. A multipurpose dam may combine storing and supplying water for irrigation, industry or human consumption; flood control; power generation and power storage; navigation; water regulation; environmental releases; climate change resilience; and recreational purposes.

The dam structure will be similar to a single-purpose dam, but the design will incorporate features into the dam and water infrastructure facility to accommodate different purposes. These may take the form of irrigation channels, power generation facilities or navigation facilities. Including various gates or valves can provide greater operational flexibility for floods or environmental releases for downstream community and environmental needs. A single-purpose project can become multipurpose during its planning stage, during operation, or in the long term when re-engineering becomes necessary.

Why consider multiple purposes?

Multipurpose dams are not a new concept; in fact, almost half of all dams are used for more than one purpose. There is a growing trend to consider multiple purposes when developing a dam, for several reasons:

1. Dam sites, particularly storage sites, are scarce national resources (i.e. they are not unlimited), so it makes sense to consider how to extract maximum benefit from them when constructed.
2. Dam infrastructure may commonly last for up to 100 years or more (i.e. they are considered a long-term asset). A dam represents a genuine long-term investment for the future, and so ideally should be viewed as such and incorporate the potential for flexible use over time.
3. Multipurpose dams are very beneficial in developing countries, as the multi-functionality of the dam operations can contribute to a number of development goals simultaneously, such as energy, water and food security, economic development, and climate resilience. In 2016, the International Commission of Large Dams (ICOLD) recognised the importance of multipurpose dams in the release of the ICOLD Bulletin ‘Multipurpose Water Storage – Essential Elements and Emerging Trends’, which rightly links the common global needs of water, food and energy. The sporadic, spatial and temporal distribution of precipitation rarely coincides with demand, making storage essential for food supply, energy production, potable water supply and other water delivery services that depend on sizable, reliable, continuous and efficient supply of water.
4. Climate change scenarios predict increasing variability in rainfall, impacting both yields and flood peaks. Droughts will affect agricultural production, and flooding is expected to increase due to more extreme weather events. With many regions of the world experiencing significant water stress, which is expected to be exacerbated by global warming, storage will play an increasingly critical role in bolstering a water system’s hydrological resilience. Dam projects should be designed with this necessity and value of storage in mind. Even in developed countries, we need our dam infrastructure to be ready to adapt to future changes as required. Taking change into account and considering multipurpose approaches will benefit new dam projects as well as projects that modify existing reservoirs.

Click image to view infographic.

Looking into the future

Multipurpose water storage projects pose additional engineering challenges when compared to single-purpose projects. Given the longevity of the infrastructure of large storage projects, planning professionals need to develop and implement solutions that will provide adequate flexibility to adapt to changes or to the diverse needs of multipurpose schemes. Scale, site selection and operational characteristics should be assessed through a long-term perspective, incorporating anticipated trends and emphasising adaptability so that future generations will inherit infrastructure that can evolve as the world continues to change.

There is no doubt that this sustainability principle is valid; however, determining how best to implement it in practice is not always easy. It is hard to anticipate and predict what will happen in a century (which is the expected life of many dams), yet this should not stop us during the early stages of the project from trying to assess long-term performance based on potential long-term scenarios (i.e. scenario testing).

Multiple perspectives for multiple purposes

Achieving the best outcome for a multipurpose dam is more likely when planners and engineers work together and closely consider the local community’s needs and the potential benefits to be gained. Both social and environmental needs should be considered, with detailed social and environmental impact assessments conducted.

Applying the principles of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) in the planning process will help promote coordinated development and optimal management of water resources – furthering progress towards goals of social equity, economic efficiency and environmental sustainability. It is important to establish criteria by which to monitor the achievement of the multipurpose objectives and the post-construction impacts on the community and environment. Another important consideration is the manner of operation of the multipurpose reservoir, which will also be critical to achieving the range of its objectives.

What is a multipurpose dam worth? 

A key planning challenge in multipurpose dam infrastructure is fully appraising the economic costs and benefits of the project. In many projects there’s a tendency to focus the analysis on the components that provide revenue streams (such as energy and water supply and irrigation tariffs) as these are most easily valued. However, this can underrepresent the project’s value across all of its multipurpose objectives, potentially resulting in suboptimal decision making or difficulty justifying the long-term investment. For example, a fundamental purpose of storage projects is flood mitigation – but flood mitigation does not generate a revenue stream. However, the economic value of flood control to a country (through avoidance of direct and indirect flood damages) often justifies the allocation of funds from the public sector.

Putting this into practice in Samoa 

The Alaoa Multi-Purpose Dam in Samoa is a fitting example of the considerations presented above.

Samoa is a small tropical island country in the Pacific, and has been heavily affected by severe tropical storms. In 2012, Cyclone Evan caused extensive flooding and damage to the Apia region, the capital, where most of the population and economic activity is located. With such storms predicted to increase in frequency and severity as the climate changes, the Government of Samoa has adopted a programmatic approach to address climate-change-induced flooding. This includes the new Alaoa Multi-Purpose Dam, sized and designed with long-term climate scenarios in mind and to provide multiple functions. It aims to increase flood protection, improve the current water supply system’s seasonal reliability, and provide additional hydropower via installation of a small hydro facility.

The dam’s design considered multipurpose functions and climate change risks, and included small modifications to provide better outcomes. Climate resilience was ‘designed in’ by incorporating ‘dead storage’, providing sediment flushing capability, increasing the flood capacity, and including a number of gates and valves – all contributing to future flexibility of operation.

The intake to the small hydro station incorporated a station bypass valve for water supply. As well, a low-level outlet and a mid-level outlet were added to increase the operational flexibility of the dam to meet its three purposes. This also enabled both low-flow and high-flow environmental releases, and improved dam safety management. How the reservoir is operated will be significant in achieving the multipurpose functions. The dam’s flexibility will allow future adaptive modification of the operation to align with the changing demands of the reservoir.

The main purpose of the Alaoa Multi-Purpose Dam was flood retention and mitigation. Consequently, as we discussed above, a limited financial analysis could not justify the multipurpose project, yet the broader economic analysis could. However, the financial analysis indicated that the regular revenue stream from the small hydro’s energy production could increase the project’s sustainability once constructed. This revenue stream would contribute to the ongoing operation, maintenance and dam safety activities associated with the multipurpose project’s long-term operation.

Could multiple purposes be incorporated into your dam project? 

Whether you are in the planning process or the early design phase for a new dam, consider whether your project could be modified to:

• achieve multiple purposes and increase the benefits of your dam project
• increase operational flexibility to allow your dam to adapt to future changes and demands
• improve the use of water resources for all needs, including the environment
• increase the climate resilience of your dam and the impact of climate change on its multiple objectives.

If you would like to discuss how we can assist you with planning and designing a multipurpose dam, please contact  Richard Herweynen, Paul Southcott or Phillip Ellerton.

About the author

Richard Herweynen is Entura’s Technical Director, Water. Richard has three decades of experience in dam and hydropower engineering, and has worked throughout the Indo-Pacific region on both dam and hydropower projects, covering all aspects including investigations, feasibility studies, detailed design, construction liaison, operation and maintenance and risk assessment for both new and existing projects. Richard has been part of a number of recent expert review panels for major water projects. He participated in the ANCOLD working group for concrete gravity dams and is the Chairman of the ICOLD technical committee on engineering activities in the planning process for water resources projects. Richard has won many engineering excellence and innovation awards (including Engineers Australia’s Professional Engineer of the Year 2012 – Tasmanian Division), and has published more than 30 technical papers on dam engineering.

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Making progress in the field, despite pandemic challenges

While some aspects of fieldwork can be modified through technological innovation, there are other things that simply can’t be done without getting out on the ground or in the water. How can we make fieldwork not only efficient and effective, but also COVID-safe?

photo by Grace Uziallo

For our Environment and Planning team, interstate and intra-state travel restrictions and work-from-home orders rolled in at the height of the field season when most summer and autumn seasonal surveys were being completed and when many in the team would usually spend multiple days each week in the field. We’ve managed the fieldwork challenges through practical modifications for greater safety, taking confounding factors into account when analysing our results, using technology to support fieldwork, and collaborating with our clients, partners and local businesses to find solutions together.

Practical modifications for safety and wellbeing

Despite the restrictions and changed conditions brought about by COVID-19, we have been keen to find safe solutions to continue working seamlessly with our clients. Our teams have adapted their fieldwork patterns and adopted stringent methods, including fieldwork procedure reviews, undertaking day trips rather than longer trips where possible, reducing the number of people per field trip to the practical minimum, maintaining social distancing, and practising good hygiene, such as wiping down equipment and common touchpoints, from car gear sticks to the helms of our boats.

For example, our aquatic scientists are braving the Tasmanian winter chill to ensure that water quality and monitoring datasets for Hydro Tasmania continue to be logged. This data is critical to understanding impacts on aquatic fauna, and forms part of a multi-year monitoring regime for many of the state’s water bodies. The team would normally be undertaking week-long field trips; however, in response to the pandemic and due to the temporary closure of many accommodation options, the trips are shorter and efforts have been made to avoid the virus hotspots within the state wherever possible.

Managing fatigue is always important when undertaking field work, and especially so during COVID-19. For most field work, physical distancing requirements have ruled out travelling in a single vehicle. However, travelling in separate cars means that the driving can’t be shared. To manage fatigue associated with driving, we have made field days shorter, or, if more practical, we’ve stayed overnight in local self-contained accommodation to avoid travelling after long working days. 

Mental wellbeing has also been a crucial consideration while living and working through the pandemic. Our teams have stayed connected, whether working at home or in the field, through more virtual team catch-ups, quiz nights and virtual Friday post-work-week banters. Picking up on cues that indicate someone may be struggling is more difficult over email or a phone or video call than when working together in the office, so it’s more important than ever to actively check in on each others’ and our own wellbeing. At Entura, ensuring staff mental and physical wellbeing is always a high priority – and, particularly during the pandemic, taking time out to breathe and declutter the mind has helped us avoid mental burnouts and kept us as motivated as ever to deliver outcomes for our clients.

Taking confounding factors into account

Our ecologists have continued to undertake their monitoring programs, including night-time roadkill surveys along lengthy stretches of winding wilderness roads to look for threatened fauna such as quolls, Tasmanian devils and wombats. One of the challenges of undertaking this work during the pandemic has been the potential that the data collected may be confounded by reduced traffic volumes, making it questionable as to whether the data collected can be applied to a post-COVID world. In addition, reduced traffic volumes may also be influencing wildlife habits – for example, making them less wary of roads.

When interpreting the data, we took these potential implications into consideration, and some monitoring regimes were extended to compensate for potential changes to usual patterns. This will help ensure that the monitoring program provides a realistic representation of trends from which ongoing management decisions can be made.

Minimising fieldwork through technology

Entura has been actively assisting with Hydro Tasmania’s Battery of the Nation initiative. This initiative, jointly supported by the federal government (through the Australian Renewable Energy Agency) and state government, is investigating and developing a pathway of future development opportunities in hydropower system expansion including pumped hydro. For our Environment and Planning team and our Spatial and Data Services team, fieldwork for their involvement in Battery of the Nation has been able to continue, albeit with some innovative adaptations.

The spatial team has developed robust methods for visual impact analysis that can be applied to multiple project locations and types. To meet COVID-19 fieldwork guidelines, minimal staff have ventured into the field. These smaller teams have used technology to send real-time information (such as geo-tagged photos) to a pre-arranged server, allowing others at the ‘office’ to access the information almost immediately. The data has included light detection and ranging data, 3D models of project elements and real-life photography, which has been processed to generate 3D walkthroughs and web-scenes. These provide an important output for the project, but are also a useful tool for other team members to understand the site context without needing to go into the field themselves.

Solving problems through local collaborations

In some cases, overcoming the fieldwork limitations of COVID-19 has required a higher than usual level of collaboration with clients, partners and other organisations. For example, when the pandemic travel restrictions prevented the original interstate consultant from travelling to Tasmania as planned, our surveyors and ecologists were called in to assist our local partner TasNetworks with an important project on Bruny Island in Southern Tasmania. The submarine cable from mainland Tasmania that ensures security of electricity supply for the Bruny community is currently being replaced after the existing cable was damaged beyond repair late last year. Our proximity made it possible to step in to help. In a display of local collaboration, Entura assisted with the bathymetric and cable trenching clearance surveys, passing the data on to TasNetworks’ cable design engineers so that planning for replacement of the cable could continue.

Anticipating the ‘next normal’

In Tasmania, we are fortunate to be gradually emerging from COVID-19 isolation and we are eagerly awaiting the return of our ability to undertake the works and visits we have had to delay, yet we’re well aware that some changes or restrictions may be with us for quite some time yet. For now, we will keep working closely with our clients to be agile and resilient, so that together we can find safe and innovative COVID-friendly ways to move our projects forward.

If you would like to discuss how Entura can help you with your environmental or planning project, please contact us.

For more articles from our Environmental and Planning team, visit our Thought Leadership collection, where you’ll find their articles about maintaining the progress of international projects and the challenges of starting new projects during the pandemic and the changes it has brought to planning regimes around Australia – amongst many more articles of interest to anyone involved in the power and water sector.

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New circumstances, new projects, new regulations

It’s a major challenge to keep an existing local project running during these tricky times (let alone an interstate or international project!), but how can we start new projects as the ground shifts around us and as regulations around Australia change?

In this third article from Entura’s environment and planning team, we feature a recent win in the national water infrastructure space – the detailed design, and planning and environmental approvals for a new off-creek storage in the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales. And we take a look at how regulatory changes are playing out around Australia to provide greater flexibility to respond to current constraints.

Starting a new project during a pandemic

Entura, working together with Hunter H2O, is now assisting Walcha Council with a regionally significant project despite COVID-19. The township of Walcha is currently serviced by one small off-creek water storage, which means that stringent water restrictions are needed during periods of drought. The regional council, supported by federal government funding, is investing in improving Walcha’s water reliability and security, which will also deliver social benefits to the community.

Our team tendered successfully when COVID-19 was yet to hit our shores, but in a mere few weeks we found ourselves loading up our office gear to set up from home. The same week that our engineering, planning and environmental specialists were scheduled to fly to Walcha to meet with Council on site, travel restrictions intensified and flying out of Tasmania was no longer an option. We adapted by taking to virtual platforms to communicate with our client about the challenges imposed by COVID-19 and how we could still keep the project moving, albeit with some deviations from the original schedule.

As a multidisciplinary firm capable of working across many jurisdictions, we pride ourselves on the relationships we have established with local contractors. In these times we are even more aware of the benefit of these associations to help keep the work flowing. For this project, collaboration with local contractors and swift adaptation has allowed the team to keep the project moving forward. Local geotechnical contractors have begun their investigations to feed information to our teams. Meanwhile, our environmental and planning experts have studied databases and existing literature to determine potential terrestrial, aquatic and regulatory constraints that may affect the design of the new off-creek storage.

Lockdown restrictions are starting to ease across the nation, but for now we are sitting tight and waiting until it is safe to visit the site. We need to ensure that storage design works are undertaken only when our technical specialists have stepped foot on the site themselves and have a thorough understanding of the site context. In the meantime, we continue to provide value through virtual meetings and workshops with our client. Hunter H2O and Walcha Council share our view regarding both the safety of our people and the quality of design required for the project.

On this constantly shifting ground, we are keeping the regulators up to date with the progress of the project, and we are also ensuring we keep up to date with any regulatory changes which may affect the project and that these are well-communicated with our client.

Regulatory changes for flexible responses

Across the country, state governments are establishing new measures to accelerate projects to shovel-readiness to help buffer the social and economic impacts of the pandemic. They’re also making temporary orders to existing legislation to provide flexible planning and environmental responses.

New South Wales

In New South Wales, the Planning System Acceleration Program has been introduced to fast-track State Significant Developments, rezonings and development applications, as well as provide support to decision-makers to speed up local and regionally significant projects to approval. Temporary orders have been implemented to allow some infrastructure construction work to be carried out on weekends to maintain productivity and employment in the sector. In NSW, temporary changes to the Environmental Protection and Assessment Act 1979 (EP&A Act) allows the Minister for Planning and Public Spaces to authorise development to be carried out on land without any approval under the EP&A Act where that development is required to protect the health, safety and welfare of the public during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Other recent legislative change in NSW is the long-awaited amendment of the NSW Bilateral Agreement under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cmwth), which was required after the introduction of the new Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 (NSW). This updated bilateral agreement has allowed environmental assessments and offsets to be streamlined, including endorsement of the NSW Biodiversity Offsets Scheme for the purposes of offsetting for a Commonwealth approval.

Queensland and Western Australia

In Queensland, COVID-19 has been declared an applicable event under planning legislation, thus allowing the Planning Minister more flexibility to suspend or extend any statutory timeframe across the planning framework if required. Similarly, in Western Australia, the Minister for Planning has issued a two-year extension for all current development approvals to assist job-creating projects during the recovery stage, along with other exemptions from planning approval for essential local community services.

Victoria

The Victorian Government has announced temporary measures to make sure that planning and approval processes can continue to function despite remote working arrangements, including allowing local government planning authorities to make decisions under delegation to facilitate efficient application turnaround times. The Victorian Government has also established the Building Victoria’s Recovery Taskforce to explore planning and investment opportunities to boost the development industry. Additionally, the new Victorian Environment Protection Amendment Act 2018 (EPA Act), which is relevant to many infrastructure projects, was to take effect from 1 July 2020 but has been deferred until July 2021 to ensure developers, consultants and regulators have time to adapt to changes in workload and workflow as a result of the pandemic.

Tasmania

Tasmanian planning reform continues with the exhibition and assessment of local planning schedules as part of the transition to a statewide planning scheme. Consultation has also concluded on the proposed process for major projects, which, if enacted, will be the state’s first multi-permit approval process.

Nationwide

The Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 is also currently being reviewed, and our planning and environmental consultants are ensuring that they keep pace with the impending changes and implications for ongoing and new projects.

Managing change

For the Walcha project, the approval process is comparatively simple and the changes to approval processes are not likely to impact the project. However, for some of our other projects, these changes create challenges. Most notably, physical distancing requirements have meant temporary shutting of council offices and town information centres where application documents and technical studies are usually displayed. Instead, full suites of application documentation are being published online or, when specifically required, hardcopies are being mailed out. With postal services already under pressure, one way to ensure the community has a fair opportunity to provide feedback is to lengthen comment and consultation timeframes.

Although the global pandemic may have been disruptive to our work arrangements, smart and innovative ways to juggle project commitments and changed circumstances have fostered strong relationships which will persist beyond COVID-19. Elevated levels of trust and virtual teamwork with clients will surely present more opportunities to collaborate once the ground settles and we reach a new equilibrium.

If you would like to discuss how Entura can help you with your environmental or planning project, please contact us.

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What’s the best technology for your pumped hydro project?

For your pumped hydro project to be suited to future energy market conditions, you need to understand the technology options available – because pumped hydro plant is not one-size-fits-all. Let’s go for a deep dive …

Pumped hydro has been around for more than a century, but in recent years it has leapt into the forefront of the quest for energy storage and firming options as the energy sector embraces increasing levels of renewable energy generation. If you want to get the best from a pumped hydro project, it’s important to come to grips with the implications of the different types and combinations of mechanical and electrical machines that have been developed over the long history of hydropower and pumped hydro.

The choices are among fixed-speed reversible pump turbines, variable-speed reversible units (including doubly-fed inverter arrangement), and ternary sets. Each has its own variations and strengths in terms of the services able to be provided to the energy market. But the technologies also vary in costs, housing requirements and performance.

All pumped hydro projects are likely to offer benefits to the market by contributing to operating reserves, reducing spill or curtailment of variable renewable energy, reducing cycling and ramping of thermal plant, lowering transmission congestion and associated costs, and lowering greenhouse gas and pollutant emissions when used to displace thermal generation. But let’s look at the specific pros and cons of each of the different pumped hydro configurations, and how they compare.

Reversible units

Reversible units comprise a single hydraulic machine (turbine-pump), a single electrical machine (motor-generator) and a single shaft. The unit changes rotational direction to switch between generating and pumping modes.

These reversible units come in two different forms: fixed speed and variable speed. The fixed-speed reversible units can’t optimise the uptake of power from the grid in pumping mode, which is important in a grid with the rapid and frequent fluctuations characteristic of high levels of variable renewable energy. However, with a multi-unit arrangement in a power station, additional flexibility during the pumping cycle could be achieved at a premium.

Variable-speed reversible units provide greater efficiency and flexibility and provide different opportunities for grid support than fixed-speed units in pumping mode. However, should all the thermal plants be retired as the energy market transforms, the lack of synchronous machines could become a major issue where rotating inertia becomes scarce. Asynchronous (variable-speed) machines rely on their power electronic controls to provide inertia. While this can be artificially enhanced relative to synchronous machines, it relies on externally provided system strength which may also be lacking in the absence of thermal units.

Based on recent projects in Australia, the cost of electrical and mechanical equipment for variable-speed reversible units is about 30% greater than for fixed-speed units and the construction cost is approximately 10% more. Yet, while fixed-speed units come at a lower cost, variable-speed machines have the potential under some configurations to provide more valuable services in operation, such as variable load during pumping operation, and as long as there is adequate synchronous generation, inertia distributed around the network.

Ternary sets

Ternary sets comprise two hydraulic machines (a turbine and a pump), coupled on a single shaft, with a single electrical machine (motor-generator). This means that the direction of the turbine is the same in generating and pumping mode. They are often the only solution for projects with very high head but they can be applied for lower head projects too. Without having to change direction, little changeover time is needed between modes, making it possible to respond much faster to the grid. There’s also less stress on the machines, which can be individually optimised. The turbine and pump can even operate simultaneously (in hydraulic short-circuit mode), and the turbine can be used to start the pump (further reducing changeover time).

This description makes it sound as if ternary sets are the way to go … but it isn’t that simple.

Many of the elements of the civil works for a pumped storage project are the same whether fixed-speed reversible units, variable-speed reversible units or ternary sets are used. However, the powerhouse structure for ternary sets needs to be taller or wider (as the units are bigger), penstocks and tailrace branch pipes will require an extra bifurcation, and it is likely that the costs involved in hydro-mechanical equipment such as gates and valves will be significantly greater. 

The extra construction costs can add up to approximately 25 per cent more than for reversible units. And the additional electro-mechanical equipment could come at a 35 to 50 per cent higher price tag compared to the fixed-speed reversible units. However, countering the increased cost of ternary sets is their likely efficiency gain of 2 to 3 per cent and a faster response time than reversible units are capable of.

The increasing need for fast response

Adopting either variable-speed reversible units or ternary sets appears, on the face of it, to be more expensive than fixed-speed reversible units, but there are mitigating circumstances that make them worthy of serious consideration.

With settlement periods in the Australian National Electricity Market reducing from 30 minutes to 5 minutes, fast response is critical. Both ternary sets and variable-speed reversible units have a big advantage over fixed-speed units in this regard, but fixed-speed units can work with the 5-minute settlement if they are utilised appropriately as part of a pumped storage scheme.

Short-circuit mode

Reversible units and ternary units require similar amounts of power from the grid in synchronous condenser mode. For a 125 MW unit, the grid power required is estimated at about 4 MW.

Some projects investigating the idea of hydraulic short-circuit with variable-speed, doubly-fed inverter machines are currently underway. In essence, a waterway is shared between two units with a bifurcation upstream and downstream of the units. In this case one of the units will operate in generating mode and the other in pumping mode.

What’s the answer?

There’s a lot to take in when comparing the different pumped hydro configurations. It’s generally accepted that variable-speed reversible units and ternary sets have certain advantages over fixed-speed reversible units in a changing energy market. Yet, in some cases fixed-speed units will do the job, and at a lower cost, whilst at the same time guaranteeing synchronous generation if rotating inertia is of essence to grid stability. There’s no clear-cut winner when it comes to pitting variable-speed reversible units and ternary sets against each other. As usual, the right choice will depend on the specifics of your project conditions and what changes you anticipate as energy markets continue to evolve.

If you would like to discuss how Entura can help you with your pumped hydro or renewable energy project, please contact Nick West on +61 408 952 315, Richard Herweynen on +61 429 705 127 or Phillip Ellerton on +61 439 010 172.

About the authors

Nick West is a civil engineer at Entura with more than 18 years of experience, primarily in hydraulics and hydropower. Nick’s skills range from the technical analysis of the layout of hydropower projects to the preparation of contractual project documents and computational hydraulic modelling. Nick was a key team member of the Kidston Pumped Storage Project Technical Feasibility Study and is currently involved in feasibility assessments of pumped hydro options as part of Tasmania’s Battery of the Nation initiative.

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Engineering – by humans, for humans

When engineers think about the future, do we get so engrossed in the complex technical problems that we don’t attend enough to the human angle?

Engineers have a reputation, whether rightly or wrongly, for being poor communicators, working obsessively and in isolation, and focusing on the immediate goal rather than its impacts on communities. Often, clichés have a basis in truth. If we are going to shift perceptions, we need to start by thinking about the way we work and the leadership we show to the next generation of engineers.

There’s no way we can predict the major developments, challenges or solutions of the next five or six generations of engineering careers. What we should focus on is what we can do right now to lead change in our profession and our communities – and I think the keys are communication, collaboration and community.

Communication

I recently listened to a podcast in which two energy market experts talked with a power system engineer. They discussed all sorts of technical matters relating to frequency and voltage control. I love those topics, but this conversation was limited and uninspiring because the participants simply didn’t have a common language or understanding.

We need to learn to communicate in ways that a variety of people can understand. That will mean better conversations with the people who can help our work have greater impact, and it will help our communities to appreciate the importance of our work in their lives.

It’s too easy for us as a profession to sit at our desks or stand under our hard hats and luxuriate in how clever we are, and then bemoan how so many people have no idea what we do and don’t value our work.

When things that involve engineers go wrong, a flurry of opinions erupts. Failures such as the blackout in South Australia, or the cladding issues at the Grenfell Towers, or issues with airlines or bridges or dams all lead to our communities questioning and debating engineering practice. Engineers tend to try to stay out of this rough and tumble for fear of being misrepresented. Yet maybe it’s better that we do engage where we can, since being misrepresented on a small issue is better than allowing a groundswell of misguided public opinion due to a lack of understanding of engineering principles. 

We need to try to better explain our work and find simple ways to convey the complexities of the decisions that we make. 

Collaboration

The world is far more complex now than it was a century ago – but it is impossible to imagine what level and pace of change future generations will experience. If we want to transform our world or help build a better future, we can’t do it by ourselves. 

Engineering no longer operates in isolation, if it ever did. We must collaborate across the engineering team and across other professional disciplines to achieve truly effective development for our communities. Sometimes we may need to focus a little less on technical delivery as a primary outcome, and increase our recognition of the value gained by engaging successfully with the communities on whom the project relies for success.

Collaboration makes our work more effective, and exposes us to a wider range of inputs and values that we can incorporate into our designs and processes. Engineering can be a leader but it can also be a facilitator for better outcomes when we draw on, listen to and learn from the other experts involved in other aspects of our projects.

Community

Engineering work almost always benefits more people than merely the one who pays the bill. Much of my work is in connecting wind farms and solar farms to the grid. Mostly my work is paid for by the owner of the farm, and while it delivers direct benefits to the owner through return on investment, it also affects everyone connected to the nearby network. It affects the network service provider and market operator, it pays salaries, and it supplies the clean energy that helps the country reduce emissions and meet its international targets. In other words, my work, which may seem intangible, has tangible effects in the real world.

If we agree that our labours produce real impacts, we need to take better care to fully consider the wider consequences of our work, which often has the potential to cause ‘collateral damage’. We can’t build a road or a wind farm without changing the landscape. When we build a machine, it uses energy and may emit pollutants; and it reduces reliance on manual labour, which may put someone out of a job. There may be a risk to lives, livelihoods or the environment if something goes wrong.

Do we always make decisions about these matters with the community front of mind, or do we place our clients on the higher pedestal? This is a tricky area and I’m not espousing a puritanical approach. However, if we knew in 1919 what we know now about lead poisoning, acid rain, greenhouse gases, scarcity and general sustainability principles, what different choices could have been made?

In a time of automation, we need to think about benefits and risks and how they affect our communities. On one occasion early in my career, I designed a controller to turn on and off a couple of compressors at a power station. I wrote some code to balance the run hours. A few months after the new system was commissioned, I asked one of the operators how the system was going, in terms of the run hours management, and he said ‘you’ve done me out of a job’. I hope he was joking. The task he’d been doing wasn’t particularly important, but there was value in having a person who was in tune with the equipment to take care of it, and there was also value in giving that person dignity through work.

My point is that we must keep our communities foremost in our minds as we go about our work. It’s not just about what we produce. It is the way we work and the people we choose to work with and for. Our influence on the development of the next generation of engineers perhaps has more impact on communities than our actual work outputs.

Through communication, collaboration and community, engineering can be both ‘more human’ and ‘for humans’.

About the author

Donald Vaughan is Entura’s Technical Director, Power. He has more than 25 years of experience providing advice on regulatory and technical requirements for generators, substations and transmission systems. Donald specialises in the performance of power systems. His experience with generating units, governors and excitation systems provides a helpful perspective on how the physical electrical network behaves and how it can support the transition to a high renewables environment.

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Can the power grid weather the weather?

Even a single day of load shedding makes people doubt the national grid’s robustness. How will the grid cope if we experience extreme weather conditions more often?

Things get hot in Australia. They can get smoky, or wet, or cold. Australia’s beauty is in its ruggedness, its unpredictability and its diversity of natural environments. It’s what Dorothea Mackellar captured so well in the famous Australian poem ‘My Country’ – a ‘sunburnt’ land of ‘flood and fire and famine’, with ‘droughts and flooding rains’.

As dramatic weather patterns become more intense and more frequent, the electricity grid must be robust, or at least be managed to adapt to short-term challenges.  

If we get the design standards right and if conditions fall within the expected extremes contemplated by the framers of the standard, then everything works. However, what happens when conditions are abnormal? In heatwaves, we see people hosing the rail network to stop expansion. We’ve seen hosing to cool distribution power transformers at peak times too. But there’s only so much water and so many hoses that we can deploy when the heat is on. It’s not a sustainable solution.  

Can we manage?

Yes … but we must manage actively. Business as usual will not be enough. Consumers will not tolerate lower levels of reliability based on the weather. So something has to change.

There are a few mutually supporting paths we could take, including (1) considering extreme temperature ratings and improving the reach and spread of weather monitoring and weather-dependent grid management; (2) adjusting standards to contemplate higher temperatures; and (3) reducing our reliance on high flows to deliver peak demand.

1.  Consider extreme temperature ratings

Incentives already exist for our network service providers (NSPs) to release hidden capacity in networks. The incentives remain a small percentage of the overall regulated income they receive. The contemplation and control of realistic ratings under unusual weather conditions could be made more attractive to our NSPs. The NSPs would then be more likely to make these opportunities for capacity benefits transparent to the regulator and the public.

Generators are now being required to stipulate capacity at higher temperatures, but this is not being applied universally across existing plant. As we saw in Victoria this summer, the market is very reactive to the unplanned withdrawal of power from large thermal units – as much, if not more, than it is to variations in wind and solar power. Thermal machines have shown themselves to be sensitive and not always robust in prolonged hot spells.

2.  Change the standards

If maximum temperatures continue to climb, our standards or ratings may need to be adjusted to suit. In a global market, we have to be careful about being too ‘special’ or we’ll end up paying for specifications that cost more than the benefits they deliver. A half-way position may be for generators to estimate their capacity in relation to temperature conditions and require tuning of these estimates over time. This would at least give us an idea of the temperature effects on production across the fleet. The results of this might then inform the need for changes to standards or at least build quality to relieve unmanageable reductions.

3.  Reduce reliance on high flows

We’ve seen the effect that emergency events such as storms and fire have on the grid. Storms are managed through localised declarations of special constraint sets. They’re also generally short-lived. As we saw with the Tasmanian bushfires this summer, smoke and fire can affect a transmission corridor for weeks at a time. Because intense storms and fires tend to be rare, the market can take some time to adapt. Some planning or scenario work by AEMO might help prepare the market and reduce the impact on supply.  

Reducing our reliance on high flows to regulate price or maintain supply may also be valuable. This suggests a need for storage/s at opposite ends of tie lines and interconnectors so that short periods of constrained flow can be compensated partially or fully by the far-end storage.

We may also need some flow-path diversity on critical corridors or on corridors that link dispatchable generation sources with loads.

There’s little doubt that Australia will experience more frequent and intense floods, fires and heatwaves. In our ‘sunburnt country’ we need to keep our eyes firmly on the future of our climate, and we must build resilience into our generators, grid and market systems.

If you would like to find out more about how Entura can help you navigate your challenges in the electricity market, please contact Donald Vaughan on +61 3 6245 4279.

About the author

Donald Vaughan is Entura’s Technical Director, Power. He has more than 25 years of experience providing advice on regulatory and technical requirements for generators, substations and transmission systems. Donald specialises in the performance of power systems. His experience with generating units, governors and excitation systems provides a helpful perspective on how the physical electrical network behaves and how it can support the transition to a high renewables environment.

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Powering up the Pacific with hybrid renewables

Beyond the typical images of blue water, white sand and sunny days, many Pacific islands are becoming visions of renewable energy innovation.

For remote off-grid communities with abundant sun and wind, such as Pacific islands, hybrid renewable energy systems offer exciting potential for achieving sustainable, secure and affordable power supply. Governments and utilities across the Pacific are embracing opportunities to harness the power of nature and lessen reliance on expensive and emissions-intensive diesel fuel.

At first glance, this picture looks perfect. But it isn’t simple. Off the grid, the impact of the intermittent nature of renewable energy is magnified. As the proportion of renewable energy in the power system increases, so does the need for enabling and supportive technologies to stabilise the power system while maximising the use of the sun and wind. This calls for innovation and integration.

A leading example of an advanced hybrid renewable power system has been completed on Yap, in the Federated States of Micronesia. It’s an inspiring example of innovative deployment of hybrid renewables to increase the energy security and sustainability of an off-grid island.

Yap, like many remote and small island states, will benefit from a clean energy power system for three main reasons: to reduce heavy reliance on imported fossil fuels, to stimulate economic growth and social development, and to improve resilience during increasingly frequent and severe storm events.

After decades of operating on diesel fuel only, Yap’s advanced hybrid renewable energy system is now enabling Yap to experience up to 70% instantaneous renewable penetration when conditions allow, with an average renewable contribution of 17%. It is delivering an annual fuel saving of up to US$500 000, and is designed to accommodate even more renewable energy generation into the future.

The journey towards a hybrid renewable energy system

Back in 2014, with funding from the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, Entura helped the Yap State Public Service Corporation take early steps on a renewable energy journey. Like many small island nations on the frontline of climate change, and facing the damage of shrinking coastlines and the ravages of tropical storms, Yap recognised the value of renewables in reducing diesel consumption, increasing resilience and economic viability, and offering lasting benefits to its community and environment.

The first stage of the process was determining the most appropriate hybrid diesel/renewable power system that would displace the greatest amount of diesel fuel within the project’s budget and transform the manually operated 100% diesel power station into a flexible, integrated and automated power system incorporating wind, solar and diesel generation.

The power system was designed to meet the 2.2 MW load for the approximately 7000 people living on the main island, delivering up to 825kW of wind energy from small but robust wind turbines and 300 kW of remotely controlled grid-connected solar energy from the rooftops of seven government buildings.

Entura provided owner’s engineer services on site during construction and commissioning. In this stage, a new breed of high-renewable-supporting diesel generators were installed, and major works were carried out to install three 275 kW cyclone-proof wind turbines. As well, an island-wide communications network was installed, providing vital interconnection for the distributed solar PV and the wind turbines. This stage of the project also brought in the ‘brains’ of the system: a centralised control system.

The overall architecture of Yap’s integrated renewable energy system, combined with the innovative automated integration and control system, balances and maintains the security of the energy supply, and also maximises the amount of renewable energy used on the island.

A future focus

With a strong focus on the future, the communications network and control system are designed to accommodate further integration of more renewable energy generation as required or desired. Entura is investigating the feasibility of including even more diversified, distributed, variable renewable energy generation to be incorporated into this system, including up to an extra 1.6 MW of ground-mounted solar, 1 MW of floating solar, 300 kW of roof-mounted solar, a 1.5 MW battery energy system, as well as the potential for another 825 kW of wind power (depending on land-owner negotiations).

As well as being designed to be able to realise future goals of operating at zero diesel, Yap’s power system is also intended to be able to be operated and maintained within the community rather than by external specialists. The Yap State Public Service Corporation and Entura are working together to develop capacity within the Yap community, so that the local people will not only own the new state-of-the-art energy system, but will also have the opportunity to develop the skills needed to operate and maintain it into the future. Local power authority crews are now fully competent in solar system installation and maintenance, and have installed all the solar components of the scheme.

For Yap, access to reliable, affordable and sustainable modern energy is an important step towards lasting social and economic benefits for the local community, as well as better protection of the beautiful but fragile natural environment.

This example of effectively integrating existing and new technologies to create a secure clean energy system is at the forefront of world’s best practice. The success of the project has obvious application for remote, off-grid or island communities worldwide – but the strength of the technologies and their integration and control are equally applicable to the creation of ‘dispatchable’ renewables at any scale.

If you would like to discuss how Entura can support your journey towards hybrid or dispatchable renewables, please contact Patrick Pease or Shekhar Prince on +61 412 402 110.

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Should you upgrade or replace your SCADA system – which option is best?

New functionality, increased visibility of plant, greater security … SCADA systems are rapidly advancing. So, should you stick with what you have, upgrade some components, or embrace a complete replacement?

This is an important and complex question for power and water owners, operators and utilities to consider. As SCADA systems become obsolete, outdated or unsupported, a range of risks come into play – so you need to carefully weigh up your options in terms of benefits and costs. Choosing the wrong system could affect your business operations or your future upgrade options.

The first step in your decision making must be to explore and understand the available SCADA options in the context of your business strategy. SCADA systems are too great an investment and too important for ad hoc or hasty decisions. This is the time for a clear-headed view of your business goals over the long term, and how your choice of action will support achieving the outcomes you seek.

In the context of this strategic view, you now need to objectively assess the value and relevance of your existing SCADA system and identify if the entire system needs to be replaced or whether some devices or software can be reused. Let’s look at ten key considerations in the decision:

1 System architecture: When you introduce new equipment or systems, your system architecture is likely to be affected. Changes to system architecture can affect the reliability or operation of your plant. A partial upgrade may or may not significantly affect the system architecture – it really depends on the changes made. The system architecture following a total system replacement may be dictated by the vendor you select, so keep this in mind when selecting vendors. Does this system suit your business or the vendor supplying it? Also make sure that your system architecture is thoroughly and accurately detailed, and keep your SCADA strategy in your back pocket for reference throughout your journey.  

2 Reliability: If parts of your existing SCADA system are reused, will this impact the reliability of the new system? Depending on the age and condition, there may be a greater risk of unreliability with the reuse or partial upgrade of components vs a complete replacement. The key here is to ensure the right people can evaluate the system and components with the knowledge of how to overcome these challenges. To minimise the likelihood of equipment failures and achieve the best outcome in terms of reliability, sometimes the best option is to carry out a full replacement.

3 Costs: A complete SCADA replacement is a costly exercise but at some point you can’t keep delaying a major outlay by only fixing the immediate concerns. Just like the increasing costs of servicing and replacing parts on an ageing car, at some point the ongoing incremental costs may no longer be worth it, and you may have to consider a total replacement. Regardless of the option you choose, having the expertise to make this call and carefully planning/estimating the work will reduce the risks of unexpected costs. The key decision-makers in your business will need to explore how to balance the initial outlay against the potential cost savings to be achieved through limiting the duration of system outages and attaining a longer whole-of-system life.

4 Functionality: The range of SCADA devices is extensive. A simple device may be cheap but it may not have been designed and built to meet high performance and reliability requirements, and it may not have the management functionality or redundancy capability you need. Your choice of functionality is partly a matter of initial cost, but you also need to carefully consider how much you need the extra functionality, what savings that functionality can offer over the longer term, your tolerance for failure, and the cost of failure to your business.

5 Compatibility and standardisation: When devices and software are upgraded or replaced, compatibility challenges and limitations may arise when interfacing with existing system components. Carefully assess your existing system and verify that the specifications and functionality of the proposed equipment are sufficient. Also consider the benefits of standardisation of system components. Standardising equipment throughout your site or sites can greatly speed up fault diagnosis, reduce design costs, minimise the need for more training, and lower your spares requirements.

6 Human interface: When your SCADA system upgrade includes the Human Machine Interface (HMI), identify which parts of your HMI screens work well and which don’t, and consider the option of designing your screens from the ground up. Avoid cluttered interfaces and consider dashboards for a single, easily interpreted overview of parts of your plant or station. If you’re changing your screen navigation and displays, you will need to allow for additional training to ensure your people are confident and capable of operating and monitoring the new system. Upgrading your HMI with a newer version of the software may be the best way forward depending on your requirements. This may require less financial outlay in terms of licensing, engineering and training costs and may be less intrusive on your system. If your system assessment warrants a complete replacement, you should carefully evaluate alternative HMI solutions to achieve the right functionality, product roadmap and financial outlay.

7 Security: How will upgrading parts of your SCADA system affect overall system security? SCADA security has evolved dramatically in recent years. Managing today’s SCADA systems can be a challenge without the right security precautions in place. Because SCADA system attacks exploit both cyber and physical vulnerabilities, it is critical to align cybersecurity measures accordingly. System security challenges of partial upgrades may not be able to be overcome depending on the age and type of equipment. So implementing a new system with the latest security technology is becoming the best option for limiting your exposure to attack.

8 Future-proofing: Just as you need to plan your pathway to implementation, you also need to keep your eyes on the future. If you’re upgrading old components, factor in the end-of-life date for support. If a device becomes obsolete, you’ll need a changeover plan to limit the impact on the system. Even if your upgrades give you the functionality you need now, what will you need in the future? Transitioning to a new SCADA system will introduce new functionality that is likely to increase the effectiveness of your operations and maintenance, and give you the opportunity to embrace the potential of big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

9 Pathway to implementation: Whatever the journey you’re on, you need to think about the path ahead so that you don’t encounter unexpected obstacles such as hidden costs or schedule blow-outs. Identify what upgrading may mean for your existing system and what limitations your system may have. Will your historical data need to be migrated to your new system, and, if so, how will this need to be handled? Upgrading to a new version of your SCADA system may be the easiest solution, but if you decide you need a new system, you’ll need to carefully handle your historical data and massage the data into the correct format for your new system.

10 Testing and commissioning: During the design process, contemplate how your system will be implemented and commissioned. Commissioning new equipment instead of reusing old technology may reduce the risk of incompatibilities and unusual operations. It may also reduce the time required for testing due to thorough system factory acceptance tests. Retesting of old equipment may have considerable impacts on your plant or station operations. The testing process and sequence is another key item that can make or break your system implementation. Assess how your system will behave during the cutover process and how the correct sequence or test process could reduce or eliminate your plant or station downtime.

Deciding whether to upgrade or completely replace your SCADA system is very much a case-by-case situation – but you’ll find the right solution if you consider all the key issues carefully and have your decision assessed by the right people and carried out objectively.

If you would like to discuss your SCADA challenges and opportunities, contact  James Devine on +61 417 389 713, Patrick Pease or Shekhar Prince on +61 412 402 110.

About the author

James Devine is Entura’s Specialist SCADA Engineer and has over sixteen years’ experience in SCADA and automation design, implementation, commissioning and project management. James has worked with clients both within Australia and overseas on a diverse range of systems including solar and wind farm SCADA systems, substation SCADA and automation systems, hydro and gas generation SCADA systems, water and wastewater SCADA systems, and wide-area SCADA and telemetry systems. James has considerable experience reviewing many clients’ existing systems and proposed designs, as well as providing specialist technical advice for single-site SCADA and automation systems through to wide-area SCADA systems and master stations.

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Identifying Australia’s best sites for pumped hydro development

There are many thousands of potential sites for pumped hydro energy storage developments across Australia, but how can a developer filter these down to the best few?

As Australia’s energy market progressively transitions from ageing thermal generation to increasing amounts of wind and solar, there are ample chances to explore and develop the energy storage solutions needed to mitigate the challenges that may come with the introduction of more renewables into the energy market.

With increased intermittent renewables, we will require more storage to smooth out the variability of weather-dependent generation so that energy is available on demand. As well, we will need storage that provides the inertia, voltage and frequency control required for a stable, reliable grid.

The key to successfully embracing these energy storage opportunities will lie in identifying the right mix of technology, capacity and site; however, pinpointing potentially viable projects is complex. A theoretical or academic approach won’t be enough to ensure a future project’s success in the real world.

Pumped hydro is a highly efficient, longer-duration solution with a proven track record, and its future is bright as Australia seeks cost-effective, reliable options to make intermittent renewables ‘dispatchable’.

There are thousands of potential pumped hydro sites across Australia. This means that developers and investors need smart methods of filtering to reduce the many possibilities to just a few ideal sites.

A pumped hydro project is a major capital investment. Getting site selection right is the foundation for success, as it will determine the likelihood of achieving a design that is both technically and commercially feasible with the right mix of capacity and costs.

Pumped Hydro Atlas of Australia offers a head start in site selection

Entura has produced a practical atlas of pumped hydro energy storage opportunities to support development of dispatchable renewable energy generation across Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM).

Through an exhaustive process, the atlas filtered many thousands of potential sites down to the best 20 around Australia. It is already being used by leading renewable energy company Hydro Tasmania to shortlist potential pumped hydro sites for the ‘Battery of the Nation’ initiative (a major Tasmanian initiative looking at how Tasmania could deliver more clean, reliable and cost competitive energy to Australia’s NEM). Identification of promising pumped hydro sites through the atlas also offers opportunities for developers in states such as South Australia and Queensland, which have set ambitious renewables targets and must maintain energy security.

Entura’s Pumped Hydro Atlas of Australia takes into account far more than the basics of identifying ideal topography and a source of water. It also accounts for other practical factors that can make or break a project: such as proximity to and location within the transmission network, land-use constraints and environmental risks, and the practicalities and costs of construction and ongoing operation. This makes it a real-world, relevant resource identifying the best sites for pumped storage projects across the NEM.

Developing the Pumped Hydro Atlas of Australia

Originally commissioned by Hydro Tasmania, the Pumped Hydro Atlas of Australia was completed in October 2017. The journey began with a literature review, appraising previous studies. This informed the development of a set of rules, assumptions and algorithms for a GIS-based study of different reservoir types and pairing mechanisms, which were tested on pilot sites.

Using these algorithms, more than 200 000 pairing reservoirs were identified across the NEM states (Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory). State-based heat maps of potential sites for pumped hydro development were prepared, along with a summary of all key characteristics for each pairing reservoir set, such as installed capacity, energy storage, distance from the nearest substation, gross head, approximate headloss in the waterways, and active reservoir volume.

A subsequent stage of refinement prioritised high-potential sites in some states. This process took into account greater practical detail, such as costings, practical engineering aspects, environmental approvals and risks, realistic high-level arrangements, proximity to other generators, and characteristics of hydrology and energy storage. This stage identified more than 5000 unique potential sites, which were then further refined with a set of rules to select the best pairing reservoir at each site. The approximately 5000 sites were reduced to approximately 500 of the most attractive options: those with an average head of more than 300 m with relatively short distances between the reservoirs.

This exhaustive refining process ultimately resulted in a shortlist of twenty promising sites across different states, with a desktop review of geology, high-level engineering arrangements, and approvals requirements. For each site a map was prepared including locality, land use, planning zones, and key characteristics of the potential pumped hydro project.

The Pumped Hydro Atlas of Australia is an example of how applied hydropower engineering can be used to create practical outputs, which are ready to be applied in the real world. Overlaying the outputs of this atlas with any new wind and solar development across the NEM could result in opportunities to invest in dispatchable renewable energy generation hubs capable of replacing thermal generation assets as they retire.

Pumped hydro energy storage will no doubt play a major role in the development and expansion of networks powered by renewable energy – in Australia and around the world. As Australia’s electricity mix evolves, so will the economics of storage. While forecasting revenue for storage projects in the Australian electricity market is still somewhat uncertain, there are many opportunities in both the existing and emerging markets to guarantee project revenues to a level sufficient to satisfy a lender’s requirements. The opportunity for investors seeking a head start in this emerging market is now.

If you would like to discuss how Entura can help you with your pumped hydro or renewable energy project, please contact Richard Herweynen on +61 429 705 127 or Phillip Ellerton on +61 439 010 172.

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Maximising the benefits of GIS for better business decisions

‘Location, location, location!’ It’s a familiar catch-phrase in the real estate industry, but it’s just as relevant in the power and water sector. Wherever there’s location-related data, a geographic information system will guide better business decisions.

Mobile devices and apps are increasingly using location-based data collected via satellites, drones, LIDAR and other rapidly developing sensing and data capture technologies. With these advances, we are able to find relevant information more quickly and draw on that information to make informed decisions. We’re seeing this proliferate in everyday life through apps that help us navigate, find services and products, and make decisions ranging from the trivial to the profound.

Developers and managers of power and water infrastructure projects who embrace GIS (geographic information systems) stand to gain benefits on an even greater scale. Gathering high-quality spatial information and analysing it to guide business decisions will certainly improve productivity and the bottom line.

Better decisions are the necessary foundation for increased revenue, lower costs, greater efficiency and productivity, and reduced risks. So, if the technology is available and there’s so much to gain, why isn’t GIS being as widely used in the power and water sector as it could be? What may be holding businesses back from fully embracing this powerful and dynamic technology?

Do we really need to use GIS for this project?

All power and water projects involve location – from finding an optimum site for your project, to analysing combinations of spatial data to make the best management decisions or to predict events. Whenever you ask a ‘where?’ question, GIS can help. Where is the asset best located? Where are the constraints or hazards? Where are the reports of previous work done in this area? Where are the customers or opportunities?

In other words, rather than asking whether GIS is needed on a project, consider making GIS a default for every project. The real question should be “how can we maximise the benefits of using spatial data and GIS on this project?” GIS can offer business benefits far beyond the most commonly understood use: making a map.

Data capture in the field can now be streamlined – gone are the days of capturing field data with pen and paper. Users can now collect data on mobile devices, sync to databases while in the field, share data, and generate their own maps, queries and reports. Embracing these advances will save time and enable faster and better decisions.

As well as providing valuable business insights, spatial analysis and location intelligence can greatly improve communication and knowledge sharing – within project teams, with the broader business, and with the community and stakeholders – via tools such as web maps and apps, visual analysis and 3D modelling.

One of the most important applications is the simultaneous analysis of different spatial datasets to provide the best solutions or choices between alternative options, locations, objects and so on. This process is better known as multi-criteria analysis (MCA) and it can be used for many applications.

For example, MCA can be used to find the optimum site for your project taking into account a range of values such as local geology, threatened species, resource availability, land use and terrain, planning restrictions, communities and demographics. Using MCA, you can establish areas of best fit for your project based on thematic overviews of areas of constraint, cost of construction, access and transportation routes.

Risks such as bushfire, weeds, threatened species, pollution sources, landslides and erosion can also be more easily and fully understood, supporting your ongoing site management of such issues.

GIS also links with document management, asset management, business intelligence and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. It can act as a portal, creating a central point of easy access, pulling together information and making it available on one of the simplest forms to interpret – a map.

Of course GIS is not the answer to everything, and it is not a standalone platform. However, there’s much it can offer across many different business activities, working together with other business systems.

What about the costs?

The return on investment of using GIS should be positive if it is used appropriately. For site selection of power and water projects, using GIS is a no-brainer. For example, using GIS to find the best site for a wind farm – locating the best winds, minimal constraints, good proximity to existing infrastructure and appropriate land use – will obviously result in vastly greater returns than siting the wind farm in an inferior location.

Some examples may be less immediately apparent, but equally valuable – for example, using GIS to increase efficiencies in everyday workflows. If your workers are taking an extra half hour every time they need to find previous work completed in an area, this time can add up quickly. Or perhaps they can’t find previous information, so work is re-done unnecessarily. These costs will keep adding up. Instead you could use a GIS web map to locate all your previous reports and projects, so that a simple click on a map finds the files and saves hours (if not days) of time.

Do we need specialist software or skillsets?

With most things, you do need specialised skillsets and software to get good results, and of course bad data in equals bad data out. Users of GIS do need to understand and assess the spatial data needs in each application.

You could undertake some GIS work yourself using free or open-source software. However, be aware of the risks of using data or tools that aren’t fit for purpose. Just because you know how to use Microsoft Word, doesn’t mean you could write a detailed report outside your area of expertise!

We have seen cases where coarse-resolution data has been used to infer finer project details and costs, resulting in poor decisions. We have also seen inexperienced operators make invalid assumptions. To get the best results, you need to be sure that you’re using the technology wisely.

If you are engaging a power, water or environmental consultant on a project, they are likely to have access to GIS capability; however, GIS is still often underutilised. When deciding who to engage on your project, ask your consultant how they will maximise the benefits of GIS to produce better outcomes for your project.

To discuss how Entura can help you harness the potential of GIS to improve your power and water project decisions and outcomes, contact Stephen Thomas on +61 3 6245 4511, Patrick Pease or  Phillip Ellerton on +61 439 010 172.

About the authors

Stephen Thomas is Team Leader and Senior Technical Officer with Entura, specialising in geographic information systems, 3D visualisation and CAD software. Steve has over twenty-six years of technical experience and specialises in environmental assessments and approvals for engineering surveys and property. He has created 3D models and animations of proposed developments including wind farms, urban landscapes and city frameworks. Steve’s work on the Hobart Waterfront 3D model won an international award in geospatial modelling.

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Can commercial solar and storage reduce risk in an evolving electricity grid?

How can distribution network service providers best take advantage of the emerging opportunities presented by commercial solar and storage systems to reduce risk in an evolving electricity grid?

Commercial solar generation (large solar arrays in places such as factories, universities, airports, etc) and other types of mid-scale embedded generation and storage are already adding value to the electricity network, despite emerging in a relatively ad-hoc way in the grid.

For distribution network service providers (DNSPs), forms of embedded renewable generation and storage have typically caused some disruption of standard business models.

However, by better understanding the drivers for commercial solar and storage, and their opportunities for network benefits, DNSPs can take some level of control, reduce risk and build network value.

Opportunities for commercial solar in existing networks

Commercial solar and storage are primarily driven by non-cost-reflective retail tariffs. This means that, despite offering some benefits, commercial solar and storage are unlikely to be delivering their full potential benefits, such as reducing the costs of grid development, reducing peak demand, and increasing grid reliability, ultimately lowering power bills for consumers. In the process, they can also create additional workload for DNSPs, often requiring grid augmentations, development of new materials and procedures, and processing connection applications.

Rather than seeing this as a headache at the fringe of their core business, DNSPs need to be more active in using and incentivising these technologies in places where they add value, such as where they can reduce the costs of building and operating the network. DNSPs need to embrace the fact that these technologies will become a dominant factor in their business over the next 10 to 15 years (if not sooner) and plan accordingly.

This means that DNSPs will need to gain experience and understanding in:

• the technical capabilities of the new technology, including the rapid advances in their ability to provide grid support
• the statistical nature of renewable generation, and why it has already contributed to reducing peak load (and how this relates to type of generation, geographical location, and rates of uptake)
• the business model for proponents, how sensitive this is, and how it can be strongly influenced by subtle incentives to install in areas that are of benefit to the DNSP
• operation of new technologies, in particular battery storage, to understand their control capabilities and limitations, and the economics of their operation
• how best to measure reliability in renewable generation systems and storage, and
• the possibilities offered by forecasting.

Recent Australian Energy Market Commission rule changes provide a new framework under the Australian Energy Regulator to support these kinds of development activities. Under this framework, the Demand Management Incentive Scheme (DMIS) and Demand Management Innovation Allowance (DMIA) will provide significant support for DNSPs to undertake activities that are likely to benefit both electricity customers and DNSPs in the long run, by supporting exploration of new types of non-network solutions.

However, the points listed above are really just the beginning, and DNSPs need to be looking further ahead to new models of supply. At the moment, the price point of renewables and storage mean that many straight-out non-network solutions aren’t financially viable, but of course these technologies are still going in, in increasing numbers, so understanding the broader value chain is essential for leveraging these technologies.

Opportunities for DNSPs from commercial solar and storage in network extension and in-fill

DNSPs need to consider how to incentivise or signal the need for embedded generation and storage in particular areas of their network, and need a plan for managing short-term shortfalls or long-term surplus.

Several DNSPs appear to have network support applications for fringe of grid well in hand through trials (including under the DMIA and DMIS) and are rapidly gaining experience with storage technology. However, network applications in areas with nodal constraints (e.g. at substations), new developments, and incremental benefits have far wider application and implications.

New developments offer two ‘network support’ opportunities, both of which could save money for the developer: the capacity of the connection is reduced (resulting in lower rated transformers, switchgear, etc.), and there is less chance of ‘upstream’ upgrades being required in the network to support the additional load. Cost savings from these opportunities would be weighed against the cost of the battery and solar, taking into account the value of other revenue streams (mainly sale and arbitrage of energy).

As an example, new housing and industrial developments are increasingly looking to minimise their connection capacity by adding commercial solar and storage. In doing so, they are taking on many of the above factors, and inherently making a choice about the value of customer reliability. And this choice will be different for different customers (e.g. a data centre that installs an uninterruptible power supply is a very different customer from an eco-housing development with battery and solar on every house).

Significant opportunities exist for DNSPs to use commercial solar and storage to allow far more flexibility in ‘selecting’ the level of reliability delivered to the development. This will, of course, take into account the value of customer reliability (VCR), but can do so in a far more detailed and localised way than would be the case using VCR based at the level of the State. By tying into the values of residents buying into a ‘green’ suburb, it may be possible to establish a lower VCR (i.e. they may accept occasional additional faults associated with the smaller grid connection and probabilistic nature of the solar and storage capacity).

Ensuring DNSPs benefit from commercial solar and storage

The strategic DNSP needs to fully assess the risks and impacts of new mid-scale embedded generation or storage connections and keep a weather eye as solutions emerge to enable future network support. This requires a range of detailed information.

Entura’s detailed analysis of the commercial, technical and regulatory aspects of commercial solar and storage identifies the key areas that still need to be addressed so that DNSPs, proponents and consumers can fully harness the potential benefits these technologies can offer the grid.

Australia’s Clean Energy Council engaged Entura to conduct this extensive study because we understand the issues facing DNSPs, the regulatory constraints, the technology and its applications, and the multiple revenue streams that make up the business case for its proponents. Our engagement with a wide range of stakeholders and analysis of common and emerging generation technologies and deployment configurations is documented in the Clean Energy Council report Grid Support: Revealing Mid-scale Generation and Storage Potential.

To discuss how Entura can support you to best take advantage of the benefits of mid-scale embedded generation and storage, contact Chris Blanksby on +61 408 536 625,  Patrick Pease, or Silke Schwartz on +61 407 886 872.

About the author

Dr Chris Blanksby is a Senior Renewable Energy Engineer at Entura, and Entura’s lead solar energy specialist. In addition to leading the above-mentioned report for the Clean Energy Council, Chris previously led the work on demand-side-management opportunities for the Clean Energy Council. Chris has undertaken and published research on the solar resource in Australia, and has led several due diligence and owner’s engineer projects for wind, solar and microgrid projects in Australia, the Pacific and Asia. Chris is currently leading Entura’s owner’s engineer team assisting the Government of Cook Islands to implement six solar PV microgrid projects, and build capacity towards their 100% renewable target.

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