Intyal­heme, a flag­ship project of Desert Knowl­edge Aus­tralia (DKA), has been award­ed almost $3.2m in grant fund­ing from the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment under the Region­al and Remote Com­mu­ni­ties Reli­a­bil­i­ty Fund – Microgrids.

The project will address bar­ri­ers that are lim­it­ing addi­tion­al renew­able ener­gy from being added to the Alice Springs pow­er system.

Using tech­ni­cal, eco­nom­ic and behav­iour­al mod­el­ling, the project seeks to deter­mine which short-term inter­ven­tions will be need­ed to shore up exist­ing grid sta­bil­i­ty as a first priority.

Beyond that, the reg­u­la­to­ry and tech­ni­cal devel­op­ments need­ed to sup­port a high­er pro­por­tion of renew­able ener­gy will be iden­ti­fied. The mod­el­ling will out­line how the Alice Springs grid could oper­ate with­out any ther­mal (con­ven­tion­al) pow­er gen­er­a­tion, even for a short period.

Oth­er fac­tors will be explored, such as work­ing out the impli­ca­tions of dis­con­nect­ing and recon­nect­ing a micro­grid into the main pow­er sys­tem, and estab­lish­ing who car­ries the lia­bil­i­ties for sup­ply dur­ing peri­ods of disconnection.

“This fund­ing forms part of a broad­er plan to rev­o­lu­tionise the Alice Springs pow­er sys­tem over the next two years,” said Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of the Intyal­heme Cen­tre for Future Ener­gy, Glenn Marshall.

“The tran­si­tion to a renew­able ener­gy future is upon us, and because Alice Springs is an iso­lat­ed grid, we will be among the first to face the sort of grid sta­bil­i­ty chal­lenges that are asso­ci­at­ed with a high pro­por­tion of renew­able ener­gy,” he said.

“Tech­nol­o­gy like micro­grids, house­hold bat­ter­ies, and cloud fore­cast­ing will be cru­cial in the future ener­gy sys­tem, so today’s announce­ment is ter­rif­ic news as it ensures a firm path towards a clean and secure ener­gy future for Alice Springs.”

Lessons learnt through the Alice Springs study will be applic­a­ble to oth­er grids in the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry, and beyond.

The project will cul­mi­nate in the devel­op­ment of a Roadmap to 2030 report, iden­ti­fy­ing the nec­es­sary steps to reach the NT renew­able ener­gy tar­get of 50 per cent by 2030, in Alice Springs.