The outgoing head of the Australian Energy Market Operator, Audrey Zibelman, says Australia needs to deal with the “facts and the reality” of the changing energy system, and not get bogged down by the politics of energy that questions whether the grid should be transitioning or not.
In her first interview since announcing her end-of-year departure from AEMO … Zibelman tells RenewEconomy’s Energy Insiders podcast that technology change is unavoidable, not political.
Zibelman also reveals AEMO’s key role in a new global partnership – the Global Power System Transformation Consortium – that brings together six leading energy system operators from Australia, the US and Europe with the aim of “fomenting a rapid clean energy transition at unprecedented scope and scale.”
Zibelman says the sharing of knowledge and experience was the key goal of the new consortium that includes independent system operators (ISOs) from Australia, California, Texas, Ireland, Denmark, and the UK, all of whom are at the leading edge of the clean energy transition.
It also involves key global financial institutions such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, as well as research groups such as Australia’s CSIRO, Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute, Imperial College London, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the US. It intends to share its information with grid operators in developing countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa.
“It’s actually a collaborative that’s made up of five of the six of the power system operators around the world to have more than 50 percent renewables in their mix,” Zibelman tells the Energy Insiders podcast.
“We’re looking at these issues around how do we integrate these resources better …. so that we can work together and solve these problems.”
Zibelman did not say much more about the Global PST Consortium, before its official launch next week, but its website shows that it appears to be more than just a collaboration and sharing of information. It describes its “visionary goal” as:
“Dramatically accelerate the transition to low emission and low cost, secure, and reliable power systems, contributing to >50% emission reductions over the next 10 years, with $2 billion of government and donor support for technical, market, and workforce solutions that unlock $10 trillion+ of private sector investment.”— from “AEMO takes lead role in global consortium seeking rapid energy transition”, Gules Parkinson, Renew Economy
