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CSIRO Renewable Energy Integration Facility. Credit: CSIRO

By Rich Bowden:

The Australian CSIRO has moved closer to helping the country reduce its reliance on fossil fuels when it opened a new facility at its Energy Centre in Newcastle, NSW today.

The new Renewable Energy Integration Facility founded by the Government science agency will “…develop new grid management technologies that will allow greater penetration of renewable, low-emission energy resources into electricity networks,” according to a CSIRO news release.

The agency’s Energy Transformed Flagship will be conducting electricity grid research at the facility to look at ways of better integrating renewable energy sources into the electricity grid.

CSIRO scientist Dr David Cornforth described the $1 million facility as “state of the art” and said it represented a major upgrade in the organisation’s experimental capability in energy management, and electricity grid operation and planning.

“The facility is state-of-the-art in its diversity of resources and experimental range,” Dr Cornforth said. “It incorporates a large range of electrical generators and replicates the way electrical load for an entire complex changes during the day.”

“This means researchers at the facility can test new grid design and operation techniques in a real-world environment using a variety of electrical generators and loads,” he added.

The energy facility was opened today by Ms Sharon Grierson MP Federal Member for Newcastle, who said the work done was “…yet another example of the important and valuable work happening at the CSIRO Energy Centre in Newcastle to help Australia reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.”

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