Australian PROFILES project gets underway. Researchers to investigate how inverters and energy storage affect grid security

Researchers at the University of New South Wales have launched a three-and-a-half-year research project with a budget of AUD 12.9 million. The initiative will examine how inverter-based renewable energy sources and grid-forming energy storage systems interact with traditional power system protection schemes.

Detecting faults in grids dominated by renewables

Unlike traditional coal-fired power plants, inverter-based resources—solar farms, wind farms and battery energy storage systems—produce very different fault currents. These differences mean that existing relays and protection systems may struggle to detect grid faults quickly and accurately.

The PROFILES project aims to determine how transmission infrastructure should be adapted to these new conditions. The project is co-funded by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, while the consortium includes major industry players such as Tesla, Siemens, SMA and Power Electronics, as well as power system and transmission network operators including AEMO, Transgrid and ElectraNet.

Real-time simulations and hardware testing

The research will focus on developing guidelines for grid-forming battery energy storage systems, which are designed to actively support system stability and establish grid voltage.

The work will be carried out at UNSW’s Real-time Digital Simulation Laboratory—the largest facility of its kind in Australia. Researchers will use advanced modelling and hardware-in-the-loop testing, connecting physical protection relays directly to a digital grid simulator operating in real time.

The project’s findings will help operators determine whether existing grid protection systems need to be reconfigured or completely replaced. In the future, this will help optimise the costs of the energy transition.