Clean Energy Council’s annual Australian Clean Energy Summit

The Clean Energy Council’s annual Australian Clean Energy Summit (ACES) recently returned to Sydney, providing a platform for leaders across the sector to discuss major industry challenges, including grid connection delays, and explore potential solutions.

One challenge is the length of time that grid stability assessments take when renewable projects need to be connected to the grid. Traditionally, these studies can take months, creating bottlenecks that slow new generation rollout. At the Summit, Powering Australia’s NSW Node Leader, Miriam Cuellar, heard about ACEREZ, a partnership between ACCIONA, COBRA, and Endeavour Energy, which has developed a new method that significantly reduces the assessment time.

Conference speakers Chloe Hicks (EnergyCo NSW), Jacqui Bridge (Powerlink Queensland), and Alistair Parker (VicGrid) stressed that assessment methods in isolation only address part of the connection challenge. Improving timeframes will require coordination between network operators, developers, and government agencies to ensure transmission investment keeps pace with new generation projects.