TransGrid has published its Transmission Annual Planning Report (TAPR) 2021.
Transmission will be central to the energy transformation needed to achieve economy wide decarbonisation. In the coming years, the patterns of electricity supply and demand will change dramatically as Australia transitions from a fossil fuel to a renewable energy based power system, leading to new constraints and challenges for the transmission network.
Already, renewables are transforming Australia’s energy system faster than expected, creating congestion on the transmission network –a problem that will become more widespread over the next few years.
In terms of demand in the near term, post COVID economic recovery and new loads from mining in regional NSW, urban development, industrial precincts and data centres will grow grid supplied demand – even with the ongoing shift to distributed energy systems.
Transmission is essential to maintain stability of the power system. To date, the coal fleet has been the steady hand that has allowed the system to counter rapid changes in frequency. Now, as coal fired generation retires and is replaced with intermittent renewables, minimum load will reduce and continue to decrease, creating increasing instability.
TransGrid’s transmission plan will support energy transformation in NSW by strengthening, expanding and enhancing the network, increasing system stability and underpinning competition within the wholesale electricity market to drive down prices for consumers.
The result will be an affordable, secure and low emissions energy system that returns a high economic dividend to NSW.
The document is available at https://www.transgrid.com.au/what-we-do/Business-Planning/transmission-annual-planning/Pages/default.aspx. TransGrid welcomes feedback and enquiries via the contact details in TAPR 2021.