This quarterly newsletter highlights recent projects, partnerships, and resources from the Global Power System Transformation (G-PST) Consortium.
Karin Wadsack
I joined the G-PST Consortium team about a month ago as the director of its secretariat, based out the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). I’d been impressed with the G-PST and its mission since I first learned about it and am thrilled to have the opportunity to come on board. The work G-PST is tackling has never been more important, and as 2021 comes to a close, it’s a particularly opportune time to appreciate the hard work that went into all the progress this consortium made over just a few short months. Special thanks go to the leadership of our core team, the championing CEOs of our founding system operators, and the system operator partners and staff we are collaborating with all over the globe.
Looking forward, we are excited to build off the foundational work that has taken place in the last year developing the solid 5-pillar organization, defining our governance structure, and creating the mechanisms for tracking and understanding the reach of our audience and impact of our research and technical support accomplishments. Next year, we will be implementing several cross-pillar collaborations through our standards work in Pillar 4, continuing pursuit of our research agenda in Pillar 1, helping scale power system decarbonization efforts in the emerging economies engaged with G-PST through Pillar 2, advancing strong work to broaden women’s leadership in power systems transformation with Pillar 3, and increasing the development and deployment of open tools for power systems management in Pillar 5. If you have ideas, opportunities, or questions, I’d love to hear from you – please don’t hesitate to reach out to globalpst@nrel.gov.
Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season and year’s end.
Best,
Karin Wadsack
Director – G-PST Consortium Interim Secretariat
Members of the G-PST’s founding system operator group, as well as other energy sector leaders, came together, virtually and in-person, for several events at COP26.
G-PST Consortium Represents Power System Progress at United Nations Climate Change Conference
The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) provided an opportunity to renew the global effort to identify and implement solutions to decarbonize power systems at the urgent pace necessary to combat the effects of climate change. The G-PST Consortium and its partner organizations were honored to participate in the conference, both virtually and on the ground in Glasgow, by hosting events and developing resources that emphasize the need to support power system operators along the clean energy transition journey through partnership, innovation, and education. Explore the G-PST’s COP26 programming below:
Unlocking Grids to Decarbonize Power Systems Globally: This U.S Center event brought together power sector leaders from the U.S. and U.K., in addition to system operator leaders from Indonesia, California, Germany, Ireland, and Australia, to introduce the G-PST Consortium and its mandate, supporting power system operators in managing clean, reliable, affordable grids, to a global audience. The event also highlighted the G-PST Consortium’s tangible progress since its April 2021 launch and premiered a new initiative, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), focused on promoting opportunities for women in power system operations careers.
Transforming the Grid: Personal Experiences: In this pre-COP event hosted by G-PST’s Pillar 1 lead organization, the Energy Systems Integration Group (ESIG), attendees heard from system operators who are bending the limits of what was previously thought possible with high penetration renewable energy grid operation. Leading system operators shared techniques they use to manage grid frequency and strength, while system operators in countries at earlier stages of renewable energy integration shared plans they are taking to avoid locking in emissions from additional fossil fuel-based generators. By using the lens of individual stories, the session humanized technical topics and shared the triumphs, setbacks, and excitement of one of the greatest technical endeavors of the current era.
Policy Brief: The Intersection of Resource Adequacy and Public Policy: Resource adequacy represents a potential short-term pitfall for ambitious clean energy targets globally. In anticipation of COP26, ESIG’s Resource Adequacy Task Force, with substantial input from subject matter experts from several of the G-PST Consortium’s founding system operators, prepared a brief to support the policy community by offering guidance on managing resource adequacy as the power system transforms.
Accelerating Power System Transformation through Technical Innovation: In partnership with Accenture, the G-PST Consortium co-hosted an event outlining how human ingenuity and collaboration can combine with innovative technology to overcome the operational challenges associated with operating high renewable energy grids. The event included speakers from G-PST partner organizations National Grid Energy System Operator (ESO), Australian Energy Market Operator, Energinet, COES Peru, and the Electric Power Research Institute, as well as representatives from the World Economic Forum, Accenture, and Reactive Technologies.
Women in Power System Transformation Initiative Launches to Promote Gender Diversity in System Operations Workforce
In collaboration with the USAID-NREL Partnership, the G-PST Consortium launched a program to advance USAID’s work focused on enhancing women’s economic empowerment and gender equality efforts in the power sector. Called “Women in Power System Transformation”, this program will provide in-depth technical capacity building for women in emerging economies so they can excel in science and engineering professional roles in the rapidly evolving power sector. In partnership with industry and academic institutions, the technical education and training offered will include university-level engineering degree programs and on-the-job training on operational and engineering grid integration approaches. Both fellowship and internship opportunities will be tailored and promoted to encourage the maximum participation of women, paving the way for women to lead the power sector’s clean energy transition.
Watch a short video, produced under this initiative and prepared by Pillar 3 lead organization Imperial College London, interviewing women engineers and leaders about their experiences working in power system operations: Women in Power System Transformation: Skills and Opportunities in Advanced System Operation. The project was also highlighted by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Secretary, Kelly Speakes-Backman, at COP26: Our Climate Future is Female; Women and Girls Leading Climate Action (remarks begin at 9:32).
Pillar 1 Pursuing Research Agenda Topics – And Needs Your Input!
The G-PST Consortium’s Pillar 1, dedicated to system operator research and peer-learning, is pursuing the near-term applied research priorities outlined in the inaugural research agenda. To promote and gather feedback about the research agenda, members of the research agenda group authored an article, published in the November/December 2021 issue of IEEE Power and Energy Magazine, outlining how the research agenda intends to advance the operations and planning of power systems for the cl