Event Recordings

DC & AC Rail Electrification - Optimised railway electrification solutions
Janis Emolins & Derrick Nofal - 13 October 2020

ABOUT THE WEBINAR

DC Electrification – Globally almost half of all electric railways use direct current traction. In mass transit systems, maximum nominal voltages up to 1500V are used because of the potential danger of higher voltages. The most common voltages are 750V and 1500VThe distance between substations varies from 1km to 6km. In the design and operation of direct current railways, special attention has to be paid to the problems of traction current return to minimise the hazard of stray current corrosion. The presentation will tackle these matters.

AC Electrification - Introduction to converter solutions for improved railway grid feeding concepts, including the pros and cons between the various technologies and reference to local and global project sites.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Janis Emolins, ABB Masters in Engineering, Electrical Science –Transportation and Infrastructure Lead

Janis is a registered Electrical Engineering professional offering extensive expertise and knowledge in the successful delivery of high-profile, high-value large-scale infrastructure projects in the Power Supply, Renewable Energy, Communications and Utilities, and Rail sectors. He has successfully led and managed multiple teams in his professional career, incorporating Project Management roles, offering an exceptional level of business acumen, communication, presentation, negotiation and stakeholder management and engagement skills. Janis can easily identify challenges, formulate solutions and drive the solution to a successful outcome, all within a team environment.

Projects successfully delivered:

• Tuas West Extension, Rail Power Supply System for 7km of Rail Extension. Land and Transport Authority, Singapore
• Circle Line, 33km of underground driverless Metro System with 34 underground stations. Land and Transport Authority, Singapore
• High Capacity Metro Trains Depot Project, Rail Systems Design and Delivery, Interface Management Rail Projects Victoria, Australia
• Melbourne Tunnel, Preliminary Design and Traction Power Modelling Completed and Issued to CYP, Rail Projects Victoria
• Sydney Light Rail, TfNSW

Derrick Nofal, ABB PG Australia

Derrick has spent the last 24 years of his career within the Distribution, Transmission and Generation Industry. He holds a National Diploma in Electrical Engineering - Heavy current (Wits Technikon – South Africa).

Derrick has held a variety of roles, which included testing and commissioning of Transmission and Distribution substations for close on 14yrs with Eskom (South Africa) and Powerlink (Australia).

International Developments in Nuclear Power
Ian Hore-Lacy - 13 October 2020

ABOUT THIS WEBINAR

The aim of this webinar is to educate and inform on the latest developments in nuclear power:

• The development and status of new technologies which are likely to be the future of nuclear power, including new generation, smaller nuclear reactors.
• Improvements in safety design of reactors and associated cooling systems and auxiliary plant.
• The capability of nuclear power to perform a load following duty.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Ian Hore-Lacy M.Sc., B.Sc., Senior Research Analyst with the World Nuclear Association, an international trade association based in London. Ian lives in Melbourne.He has had 25 years in the nuclear industry, and before that 20 years with CRA/Rio Tinto, joining as Environmental Scientist in 1974.He is author of Nuclear Energy in 21st Century, the 11th edition of which was published in 2018.His particular interests encompass the technical to the ethical aspects of mineral resources and their use, especially for nuclear power.

Challenges in Energy Australia’s demand response trial with ARENA
Kelsey Rowe - 8 October 2020

Demand response is demonstrating its capacity to support the development of a new Australian energy system that works, one underpinned by renewable energy and supported by flexible “firm” generation, storage and smart energy management. In the first half of 2020 EnergyAustralia’s ongoing demand response trial attracted more participants – even though no marketing recruitment campaigns were run – and delivered reductions in load at or exceeding targets, helping maintain system reliability. In “live” tests, demand response provided a market reserve of more than 50MW, freeing up capacity when it is needed most.

Kelsey’s presentation will dive into the challenges faced by the trial across our various customer segments and how distributed energy and demand response are looking to shape our energy system in the years to come.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Kelsey Rowe, Solution Design Lead | NextGen

Kelsey has a Bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering and Master in Advanced Engineering (Renewable and Sustainable Energy Engineering) from Monash University. Prior to EnergyAustralia Kelsey worked at GreenSync delivering a range of demand response projects for energy retailers and network operators.

SA Water’s Zero Cost Energy Future
Dr. Robert May | Ashley Nicholls - Wednesday 30 September 2020

SA Water is taking a pro-active approach to managing energy price risk and through its Zero Cost Energy Future (ZCEF) program is installing a total 154MW of behind-the-meter solar photovoltaic (PV) energygeneration and 17 MW (34 MWh) battery energy storage systems at more than 30 of its operational sites. ZCEF aims to reduce our annual net electricity cost to zero to delivering cost reduction to South Australian customers.

As part of ZCEF, we are developing an integrated Energy Management System (EMS) to optimise operation of treatment and pumping facilities to minimise costs and maximise benefits from our new energy generation assets, while ensuring service delivery and continuity.

The EMS will bring together real-time information on current energy market and water and wastewater system status, and short-term forecasts of energy market prices, solar PV generation and water demand to determine optimum operational decisions for the best energy price and service delivery outcomes.

The system will utilise state-of-the-art energy analysis and real-time decision support systems, including Tesla Autobidder to manage the operation of its distributed battery fleet; and PLEXOS modelling and optimisation software to provide decision support for operating its flexible load.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Dr. Robert May, Energy Optimisation Specialist, Energy Portfolio Team | SA Water

Robert is currently Energy Optimisation Specialist within the Energy Portfolio Team at SA Water, and is responsible for the development of intelligent systems for the co-optimisation of water and energy asset operations as part of Zero Cost Energy Future.

Robert is an engineer/data scientist with a career spanning over 18 years in the municipal water and wastewater sector throughout Australia, Asia, Europe and Latin America; with experience in a broad range of technical engineering and management roles, covering treatment plant operation, network management, asset management, and research and development for water, wastewater and recycled water systems.

Robert’s academic qualifications include a PhD in machine learning applied to water engineering applications, and BEng (Chem) and BSc (Biochemistry and Applied Mathematics) degrees from the University of Adelaide. He has also served as an Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Adelaide for over 10 years.

Ashley Nicholls, Energy Portfolio Manager | SA Water

Ashley Nicholls is the Energy Portfolio Manager at SA Water. Ashley has held several senior roles in the Australian electricity sector since the beginning of the electricity market with Babcock & Brown, Flinders Power and Trustpower particularly in energy trading, portfolio structuring and renewable energy development roles.

His influence at SA Water has seen it move from a traditional electricity retail contracting to one of the more sophisticated electricity consumers in the country, most recently initiating SA Water’s Zero Cost Energy Future program and framing the electricity portfolio to guide that investment program. His team is responsible for SA Water’s energy portfolio including energy consumption and generation optimisation, wholesale market energy trading and energy portfolio planning and risk management.

Ashley has a degree in Mechanical Engineering an MBA and Grad Dip. in Applied Finance.

Optimising Spur and Single-Wire Earth Return (SWER) Line Protection for Increased Reliability
Greg Schellenberg, Obaid ur Rehman, Roxanna Partow - 24 September 2020

Join us for a series of three webinars designed to share our strategies and experience with reliability improvement on distribution networks.

Today in webinar two, we will explore protection strategies, including fuse saving, sectionalising, and lateral reclosing, used by distribution network service providers to improve spur and single-wire earth return (SWER) line reliability. We will first introduce the basic principles behind these strategies and then compare the relative reliability benefits between them by considering improvements in the two key reliability measures, SAIDI and SAIFI. Furthermore, we will present methods for determining the business case for each strategy and a representative case study that illustrates these benefits.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Greg Schellenberg | Manager, Applications | S&C Electric Company

Greg provides support and specific application knowledge on S&C products to customers in the Asia Pacific region. Greg has been involved in a wide variety of projects ranging from automation of distribution feeders to improve network reliability, to power quality projects where battery energy storage solutions were provided. Greg is currently a registered E.I.T with the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta, and before moving to the S&C Asia Pacific business unit was an active member of the IEEE PES/IAS local Chapter in Alberta. Greg holds a B. Eng. Electrical Engineering specialising in Electrical Energy System from the University of Victoria in British Colombia, Canada.

Obaid ur Rehman | Application Manager | S&C Electric Company

Obaid provides support and specific application knowledge on S&C products to customers in the Asia Pacific region. Obaid has experience in working with utilities in the operation and maintenance domain in transmission and distribution. Obaid holds a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from NED UET Pakistan and an MBA OF Supply Chain Management from the Institute of Business Administration. He is also an active member of Engineers Australia and CIGRE.

Roxanna Partow | Senior Consultant, Consulting & Analytical Services, Asia Pacific | S&C Electric Company

Roxanna provides support on performing analytical studies associated with network planning and protection, including power flow, short-circuit, protective device coordination, distributed generator interconnection, and reliability studies on S&C products and services. Roxanna has over 10 years of experience as a both an engineer and management professional across various roles and industries relating to the power sector, infrastructure sector, transport sector, sustainability and innovation. Roxanna holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Honours), in Electrical and Computer Systems from Monash University and a Bachelor of Science from Monash University.

Overhead line conductor damage from bushfires – ‘an assessment methodology'
Garry Brennan - 23 September 2020

In recent time, Brennan Consultants Australia has had a couple of clients interested in bushfire conductor exposure and longer term conductor serviceability. The normal ABC of bushfire damaged power line restoration is

A) conductor meets a visible inspection - conductors retension;

B) other line restorations works; and

C) power line returned to service.

Often longer term conductor degradation studies are not carried out and asset managers should be mindful that conductors may be exposure to temperature excursions for a couple of hours prior to a bushfire passing, many minutes of direct flame contact and after the fire passed several hours of radiant heat exposure.

The exposed conductors experienced thermal excursions will result in some annealing, for ACSR, loss of grease protecting the Al/Zn interface; melting of the Zn coating of the steel wires; and in extreme cases, Al may have experienced melting.

Other than the melting of the conductors, the annealing damage, loss of grease and loss of Zn is not visibly detectable. Doubts will remain as to the longer term serviceability of the conductors and appropriate insurance assessments and future risks.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Garry Brennan

Registered, Chartered Professional Engineer, Fellow Engineers Australia, Masters Engineering Degree (Honours) Mechanical, Bachelors Engineering Degree (Honours) Electrical and Graduate Diploma Management.

An expert, regularly undertakes forensic investigations and root cause analysis into overhead line failures, bush fires, conductor degradation and serviceability, electrical equipment failures, fires and electric shocks.

Extensive experience in overhead line planning, optimization, design, construction, assessment and life prediction, maintenance strategies and operation and spans 500 to 11 kV lines and includes lattice steel towers, concrete, steel and wood poles.Experience in high voltage and high current testing.

15 years’ experience, managing NSW South Coast 132 and 33 kV transmission network including major customers Blue Scope Steel and Tallawarra Power Station.

Currently, Transmission Line and Conductor Specialist consultant and previously Endeavour Energy’s Transmission Manager, worked at TransGrid (ECNSW) and Ausgrid (SCC) with over 45 years electrical supply industry experience commencing as an apprentice.

Recognized industry expert in bare overhead conductors completing a Masters Degree by thesis on “Methodology for the Assessment of the Serviceability of Aged Transmission Line Conductors” and conductor selection, degradation and serviceability life assessment.

Past Convenor of the CIGRE , Overhead Lines Australian Panel and past Australian CIGRE, International Overhead Lines Study Committee. Awarded CIGRE Technical Committee Award and Australian National Committee Award of Merit.

Long-standing commitment to continuing education, published 12 part conductors series, 4 part uprating of power lines series, been a post graduate lecturer at the University of Wollongong and since 2008, presented to over 500 participants Australia and New Zealand wide, a 2 day seminar on “Fundamentals of Overhead Line Design.”

Member of Standards Australia technical committees on Design of Overhead Power Lines,Conductor and Insulator. In 2006, major industry achievement was to persuade Standards Australia to develop an overhead lines design Standard which was published in 2010.

Technologies enabling hydrogen export from WA
Lourens Jacobs - Tuesday 8 September 2020

Greenhouse gas emissions in a business-as-usual scenario can lead to global warming of more than 4°C, causing a substantial global environmental impact. Hydrogen has been identified as a key enabler for transitioning to lower carbon fuels. Hydrogen & ammonia is a potential way to transport renewable energy and can be used in power generation, transport and industrial applications. Our traditional energy trading partners Japan and South Korea have strategic hydrogen roadmaps as a way to decarbonise their economy. Western Australia, having access to gas resources and potentially large scale renewable resources can be a natural future hydrogen export partner. Which key technologies can potentially enable WA becoming a leader in hydrogen export?

This event will incorporate the 2020 EESA WA chapter AGM which will run for 15 minutes at the beginning of the event.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Mr Lourens Jacobs, Hydrogen Development Lead at Woodside Energy

Lourens Jacobs is currently the Hydrogen Development Lead at Woodside Energy. Previous roles include Engineering Manager, Technical Manager and Business Development Manager, having work in the Oil and Gas industry in South-Africa, Qatar and Australia. He developed several innovative concepts and successfully turned them into viable business propositions over the last 25 years. Previous ideas include the first production and use of synthetic jet fuel commercially, the first commercial Gas-to-Liquids facility converting natural gas into premium diesel, the first of its kind li-ion battery on an offshore gas platform and his current focus is New Energy and the export of Hydrogen. Lourens holds Bachelor and Honours degrees in Chemical Engineering and is currently doing a MBA through AGSM UNSW.

Successfully Leading Change in the Electric Energy Area
Jeff Allen - 3 September 2020

ABOUT THIS WEBINAR

There is a general view that it is essential for engineers to understand all the changes that are occurring across the electric energy area (be they technical, market, management or customer-driven) and adjust their knowledge, their attitude and their overall approach to their role in order to be successful in this new business environment.

This webinar is about why engineers need to build their capacity to cope with these changing times. This capability is about the skills for the future, and in particular – leadership.

These skills for the future are generally seen to be:

1. Personal attributes and non-technical skills such as leadership, interpersonal skills including strong written and verbal communication, etc
2. Increased understanding of commercial and business fundamentals, project management, etc
3. Improved technical skills & understanding of new as well as emerging technologies
4. Work readiness – the ability to transition to the new roles that new technology or the many other changes are bringing to businesses in the electric energy area.

Thus with all these changes that are occurring, engineers at all levels in their organisation need to show leadership to ensure successful change in their area of expertise or responsibility.

Thus the question emerges – what is leadership – and what do engineers need to do to successfully lead and manage the changes that are occurring in their area of interest within an organisation?

Engineers may find themselves in a leadership role given their technical expertise – and to understand how they should act to gain the best result from the collective members of the team (often allocated to the task from various groups across the company) and to achieve the best outcome for the organisation overall - is another personal challenge and often a great opportunity for engineers in the ever-changing electric energy area.

Jeff Allen will provide practical insights for engineers as to “what is leadership?”

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Jeff Allen, President of the Electric Energy Society of Australia

Jeff has held many management and senior executive/leadership positions in his career. These positions include:

• General Manager Network Services, General Manager Network, Director Engineering Services, Manager Network Development and Manager System Operations at Prospect Electricity
• Managing Director/CEO, GM Networks and GM Network Services at Endeavour (previously Integral) Energy.
• CEO of Energy Auctions (now Energy Action Ltd) – energy procurement and energy advisory services
• CEO of AK Power Solutions (now part of Insulect) – Power System Equipment Manufacturer and Supplier
• Director Client Services for EMS Solutions - Asset and Works Management IT solutions
• Managing Director J N Allen & Associates providing consulting services in Australia and New Zealand in the areas of network regulatory and pricing submissions, best practice asset management, engineering consulting, business process re-engineering, procurement best practice and culture change management.

Bushfire effects on the network
19 August 2020 - Peter Dulhunty

SYNOPSIS

The Bushfire recovery effort from the 2020 bush fires is shown with publicly available information from Essential Energy, Ausnet and Transgrid. Fortunately none of these fires were caused by electricity assets, but the recovery and expense is impressive. One asks what is the measure of a bush-fire? The size in hectares? The duration in weeks? Number of homes lost? Number of people killed?

These fires were not the largest, but the most filmed due to the number of lenses in iPhones and media attention on climate change.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Peter Dulhunty is the international convenor of Cigré B2.73 on “Guide for Prevention of Vegetation Fires Caused by Overhead Line Systems".

Optimal Deployment of Distribution Automation Devices
13 August 2020 - S&C Electric Company

SYNOPSIS

Join us for a series of three webinars designed to share our strategies and experience with reliability improvement on distribution networks.

Today in webinar one, we will explore key strategies to improve distribution network reliability, including segmentation and looping of feeders. We will discuss how these strategies improve SAIDI, as well as utility cost of deployment and the total cost of reliability considering the value of customer reliability (VCR). We will also discuss the impact of momentary interruptions and compare the benefits of common feeder configurations to minimise the impact on customers.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Greg Schellenberg | Manager, Applications | S&C Electric Company

Greg provides support and specific application knowledge on S&C’s products to customers in the Asia Pacific region. Greg has been involved in a wide variety of projects ranging from automation of distribution feeders to improve network reliability, to power quality projects where battery energy storage solutions were provided. Greg is currently a registered E.I.T with the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta, and before moving to the S&C Asia Pacific business unit was an active member of the IEEE PES/IAS local Chapter in Alberta. Greg holds a B. Eng. Electrical Engineering specialising in Electrical Energy System from the University of Victoria in British Colombia, Canada.

Zunash Ijaz | Application Manager | S&C Electric Company

Zunash provides support and specific application knowledge on S&C’s products to customers in the Asia Pacific region. Zunash is an experienced electrical engineer in understanding and developing power system protection schemes, automation schemes, SCADA and communication testing, and site commissioning. Zunash holds a Master of Engineering Management, a Graduate Diploma of Microelectronics Engineering, and a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering.

Ernst Camm | Senior Manager, Consulting & Analytical Services, Asia Pacific | S&C Electric Company

Ernst provides support on S&C product applications and consulting and analytical studies in the Asia Pacific region, and has been involved in distribution automation, renewable integration, energy storage, and microgrid deployment projects. Ernst has more than thirty years of power industry experience and is a Past Chair of the IEEE Power & Energy Society’s Wind and Solar Plant Collector System Design Working Group, as well as the Integration of Renewable Energy into the Transmission and Distribution Grids Subcommittee. Ernst holds a BSc degree in electrical and electronic engineering from the University of Cape Town and a MSEE degree from the Ohio State University.

2020 South Australian Power Network Islanding Event
12 August 2020 - Nilesh Modi & Babak Badrzadeh

SYNOPSIS

On 31 January 2020 destructive weather conditions caused a non-credible loss of transmission towers in Victoria. This in turn resulted in the formation of an electrical island including the whole South Australia power system. Islanding of this network, having a very high penetration of wind and solar energy sources, was an interesting test of the capabilities of renewable energy. This presentation discusses the response of key network elements to the event and subsequent operational measures taken and experiences gained.

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS

Dr. Nilesh Modi, Senior Engineer, Australian Energy Market Operator

Nilesh is a senior engineer at the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO). At AEMO, Nilesh has worked across various teams including National Planning, electricity market operations and Systems Capability. Nilesh has worked on various key projects/documents published by AEMO, namely the review of the South Australian (SA) system black event, system strength assessments for South Australia, the review of under-frequency load shedding design for SA, the system integrity protection scheme for SA, system strength requirements and the inertia requirement methodology. He has been involved in investigating system incidents that have resulted in large disruptions across the National Electricity Market (NEM). Nilesh received his PhD from the University of Queensland, where he was awarded the Dean’s Excellence Award for RHD Excellence. Nilesh is a senior member of the IEEE and also an adjunct research fellow at the University of Queensland, Australia.

Dr. Babak Badrzadeh, Manager, Operational Analysis and Engineering, AEMO

Babak is the manager of a team, which develops engineering solutions for a wide range of power system security issues based on detailed power system modelling and analysis. Babak is the convener of the Australian Power System Modelling Reference Group and has been a key contributor to several CIGRE Technical brochures, and IEC and Australian standards. He is currently the Convener of CIGRE WG C2.26 and C4.56, and a recipient of 2019 energy Systems Integration Group’s Engineering Excellence award. Babak holds BSc, MSc, and PhD degrees all in the area of Power System Engineering. Prior to joining AEMO in 2012, he was a Lead Power System Engineer with Vestas Technology R&D in Denmark where he joined in 2010. Between 2007 and 2010 he was with the Transmission and Distribution Division of Mott MacDonald UK as a Senior Power System Analysis Engineer.

Nuclear Debate – is there an appetite?
11 Aug 2020 - Lackenby, Parker, Homsany, Barr, Ho

ABOUT PRESENTATION 1

Current nuclear power plants, the development of small modular reactors (SMRs) and advanced reactor technology. Where they are appropriately suited and the current demand for modular reactors.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Dr Joanne Lackenby (Jo), President of Women in Nuclear (WiN) Australia Inc
Jo is filling in for Dr Mark Ho, who is no longer available.

Dr Joanne Lackenby (Jo) is a nuclear safety and licensing specialist with over 12 years of experience in nuclear in Australia. She is the President of Women in Nuclear (WiN) Australia Inc. and a Committee Member of the Australian Nuclear Association. Throughout her 12 years in nuclear she has been fortunate to have visited a significant number of nuclear power plants in Europe, Asia and the Middle East and participated in many international conferences with a focus on nuclear energy. Jo is a 2019-2020 Superstar of STEM. She is a passionate advocate for the environment and nuclear science and technology. Jo holds a degree in environmental engineering and a PhD in geotechnical engineering.

ABOUT PRESENTATION 2

Inherent challenges of Nuclear Energy in WA:

As you no doubt know, the state has a small population on an isolated grid (SWIS). While nuclear power plants certainly fit other Australian States, the current 1.1GW plants are too large for WA and so the opportunity exists to look at the new generation of small factory manufactured power plants such as NuScale or the General Electric BWRX 300. These come in varying outputs in the range of 300 – 360 MW.

Mr Parker will be looking at their economics, the likely LCOE (Levelized Cost of Energy) and the suitable locations for such a plant.

In the context of deep carbon emissions reductions he will also review the options for the SWIS of:

a)persisting with a system of wind and solar generators backed up by gas with substantial levels of grid services and batteries vs

b)progressively installing small nuclear power plants designed to load follow operating with by optimised levels of solar and gas. This would require careful consideration as to the long term large range of residual demand.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Robert Parker

Robert Parker graduated in 1974 as a Civil Engineer from the University of New South Wales where he obtained a Masters in Engineering Science. He spent 40 years in engineering design, project management and project development. Within Australia his work included dams, water treatment plants, rail, freeway and bridge projects. This was followed by extensive international assignments on large dam and hydropower jobs including projects in Vietnam, Iran, Eritrea and Indonesia.