Review of International Grid Connection approaches and best practices for Ireland

This course will provide a high-level overview of the grid connection processes for renewable projects in a number of countries and will identify the various regimes that have best practices that might be used to inform developments in the Irish context. The countries that will be explored are:

• Australia
• Great Britain
• Netherlands
• Belgium
• Finland
• Spain

Specifically, the course will consider the treatment of connection costs, timelines and service provision by system operators in the delivery of connection offers and grid connections for renewable projects in the various regimes and how these might apply to the Irish context.

Participants will gain an understanding of the grid connection processes in the different countries and how best practices for renewable project connections might be applied in Ireland.

This course will be relevant to renewable project developers, grid engineers, grid consultant, OEMs and contractors

The course will be a half-day workshop structured as follows and delivered via PowerPoint presentation:

• Introduction
• Connection process that applies in each jurisdiction
• Process timelines and stages
• Cost ranges where available
• Timelines for connection delivery
• Technical requirements
• Best practices identified and opportunities for the Irish system

Questions and discussions will be encouraged during the training session to develop relationship and trust, and for the trainer to gain understanding of the trainees’ key interest areas to focus on.

DNV is a global quality assurance and risk management company. DNV provides classification, technical assurance, software and independent expert advisory services to the maritime, oil & gas, power and renewables industries. They also provide certification, supply chain and data management services to customers across a wide range of industries. Operating in more than 100 countries, our experts are dedicated to helping customers make the world safer, smarter and greener.

Trainer: Michael Gow, Ronan McDermott

Michael Gow is Principal Engineer for Renewable Projects, UK & Ireland, Middle East and Africa within DNV Energy Renewable Advisory business. In his current role, Michael provides lead support to customers as Owners Engineer, specifically for electrical engineering issues focused on onshore wind and solar projects for pre-construction and construction stages of projects. Michael also performs the role of Key Account Manager for one of DNV’s Regional Key Accounts. Michael also has the role of Team Leader for the staff in Glasgow, consisting of civil engineering, control centre and site management, performing the HR function for the direct reports under him in this role.

Ronan has worked in the connection of renewable energy generation projects since 2006, and has been an employee of DNV GL for over 10 years, having started working for Garrad Hassan and Partners in July 2008.During that time, Ronan’s work has focused primarily on grid connection of onshore and offshore wind farm projects - either reviewing or preparing suitable engineering documentation to facilitate the grid connection or electrical balance of plant layouts. Ronan has extensive interest in offshore wind connections having worked on technical due diligence assessments of OFTO assets as well as an industry leading project investigating 48 kV and 66 kV cable array solutions back in 2009. Ronan project managed a 2 year technical due diligence of HVDC offshore assets in Germany between 2011 and 2013 which involved liaising with teams and experts across Europe to ensure all technical aspects of the assets and associated risks were fully explored and documented to the investor. In recent years Ronan has focussed on generalist roles of Owners Engineer/Project Manager or Lenders Technical Advisor(LTA) on wind farm construction projects in the UK and Ireland (between 2015 and Q3 2017 in particular) and in the APAC region where Ronan was based between Q4 2017 and Q3 2019.