Getting ready for mixed energy futures of coal, gas, renewables and storage! Reflections from IEEE PES GTD Asia 2025 conference.

It’s a pleasant winter day on 26^th November, in Bangkok @ IEEE PES GTD Asia 2025. My learning started with 3 hour tutorial from Dr. Daniel Eghbal on frameworks for future distribution networks, a sub-topic that I am focussing in my PhD work on cyber security in the renewable energy eco-systems. Some of us have already realised the impacts and respective trends like creation of local renewable energy zones, introduction of Home Energy Management (HEMs), creation of new vertical/department of DSO by the DNSPs, impacting transmission strategies, formulating standards and guidelines at national level by CER (consumer energy resources) technical to name a few.

The 4-day conference was a great learning curve for me from power engineering aspects, provided enough leads about the scenarios for the energy planning and operations, the states would be interested in. I am trying to summerise  the reflections in this post.

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  I was sad to see a report about the combustion of coal single-handedly emitting more than 10 gigatons of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent per year. Then the question, how are we going to meet 2369 Peta Joules of energy demands and saving the earth from fossil fuels! The adaptation is leading to mixed futures of coal, gas, wind, solar and storage. The pillars of the framework suggested for the "centralised, decentralised distributed" networks - autonomy, coordination, scalability and resilience across different stakeholders of traditional generation, Variable Renewable Energy (VRE), Distribution and Transmission - makes sense. The scenarios should address the cross functions of  grid stability, protection, visibility of DER and forecasting with uncertainties.  The decentralised and distributed frameworks has stuck in my mind from Dr. Eghbal’s tutorial.

• A presentation on “Risk-aware and adapting whole-system planning under uncertainty” by Prof. Pierluigi from Uni. Melbourne, very good insights for my foresight thoughts. It is intriguing to see the image of “The Flaw of Averages” raising questions on energy infrastructure planning for average vs. extreme and rainy-day scenarios. I liked the scenarios shown with solar power generation investment levels and analysis / projections with further inputs on the usage of Least Worst Weighted Regret (LWWR) analysis based energy planning (in practice at AEMO as a part of Integrated Systems Planning in Australia and National Grid ESO in UK) vs Stochastic planning in identifying more robust optimal path developments.

• Recollecting the 6 VRE phases of integration depicted by International Energy Agency report/presentation by Dr. Peerapat Vithyasrichareon, I believe we should articulate the plausible scenarios for our future networks by the time phase 4, “VRE meets almost all demand at times”, is achieved. I am trying to co-relate these presentations to the centralised to decentralised and distributed networks concepts with a proposed transactive layer between transmission and different distribution scenarios foreseen by Dr. Eghbal and am wondering there could still be unforeseen wider transmission scenarios with VRE penetration.  I believe there is a need to put some effort in scenario planning and then the models like stochastic or LWWR for energy planning would help us in choosing robust, low-regret options across multiple future scenarios.

• Another point highlighted is the transmission planning and operation readiness being a long runway and the kind of planning required to adapt the fast VRE based generation to avoid risk of missing the net zero targets.  It is evident that across the world including APAC countries have stretching targets to achieve Net Zero between 2030 and 2050 accelerated by the government policies. The suggestions discussed in the conference are around grid forming STATCOM, e-STATCOM. A day long tutorial followed by a plenary session in order to address the trend of increased penetration of inverter-based generation and impacts is a good sign. Retirement of conventional generation and decreased inertia, dynamic shunt compensation solutions are becoming ever more vital for grid operation and reliability. The challenges in bringing more Synchronous Condensers (SynCons) to the grid vs. STATCOM are highlighted. It seems we are moving towards a combination of these FACTS technologies depending on the requirements and priority – flexible/dynamic controls and stability of grid with inertia, fault current and/or fastest frequency. The scenarios seems to be a mixture of these technologies e.g. SynCons+BESS or STATCOM_BESS. More to be explored and materialised.

The list goes on with many panel and oral sessions in different streams including mine on the cyber secuirty standards in the renewable energy systems. BTW, It’s worth mentioning about the winning poster from Dr. Khaldon Alareqi on “SOLASPACE: Orbiting Solar Reflectors Delivering Global Renewable Power”, may be next SpaceX mission!!! Also I want to highlight that I was tossing between the tutorials of real time simulation and  tutotial on IEC 61850 by Dr. Francisco M. Gonzalez-Longatt, are informative and giving some options for my future lab work.

It is worth 4 days generating lots of hope and agency eager to contribute to the unfolding future stories on the APAC countries and Australia towards NetZero by 2030-2050.