Reactive Technologies Limited (RTL, Reactive), the UK grid resilience technology company, today announced the launch of its grid stability measurement service with The Taiwan Power Company (TPC), a state-owned electric utility providing electricity to more than 13 million industrial, commercial, and residential customers in Taiwan.
The news comes as RTL ramps up the global rollout of its GridMetrix® platform, the first-of-its-kind software that offers real-time insight into the stability of a power system, enabling grid operators to reduce costs and manage risks more effectively. As grids transition from fossil fuel generation to distributed and clean energy, measurement technologies like GridMetrix® that provide instantaneous data instead of estimates are vital to managing system stability while maintaining reliability and resilience.
Taiwan has set an ambitious “20-30-50” goal to have 20% of electricity generated by renewables, 30% by coal, and 50% by gas in 2025. With abundant wind resources, Taiwan is targeting 45-50 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2050. The country recently inaugurated the Formosa 2 offshore wind farm at the Waipu Fishing Port in Miaoli, one of the largest offshore wind farms in Taiwan.
TPC is responsible for the effective operation, coordination, and stability of the electricity grid in Taiwan. In this role, TPC has identified the significant and increasing risk of low grid inertia, a result of the decommissioning of fossil fuel power stations and significant increases in renewable generation.
Traditionally, fossil fuel power stations ensured Taiwan’s grid stability with inherent inertia, but as renewables like wind and solar grow, Reactive’s technology is vital to managing non-synchronous resources lacking inertia, preventing potential system instability and supply disruptions. With plans to retire coal-fired power plants in favor of renewables, TPC recognized the need for effective direct measurement, forecasting, and control of system inertia. To achieve that capability, TPC has contracted Reactive Technologies’ GridMetrix® inertia measurement service, which will enable TPC to accurately measure, visualize, forecast, and better control inertia across its network and provide critical system stability data and insights as the network goes through a period of significant change. The project will utilize a 60MW/96MWh DongShan battery energy storage system (BESS) currently under construction in the north of Taiwan, which will provide a modulation signal to be detected by Reactive’s measurement devices.
Reactive’s GridMetrix® technology provides a deeper level of visibility of the entire energy system from transmission system infrastructure, into the parts of the network with non-synchronous generation and demand-side loads, which up to now have been hard for system operators to have visibility of. This allows operators to measure the hidden inertia in the distribution grid, which in some cases can account for up to 30% of the total amount of system inertia, uniquely enabling a grid operator greater capacity to securely integrate higher proportions of renewable energy safer, and faster. RTL’s ability to measure transmission, distribution, and demand level inertia will provide unprecedented transparency and allow TPC to meet their challenge of integrating greater amounts of renewable generation while maintaining system stability.
Commenting on the agreement, Marc Borrett, Co-Founder and CEO said, “There is a pressing need to transition to secure, zero carbon grids, and our customers across the globe are asking us to help them deliver this at pace. The challenges facing TPC in their transition to clean energy are familiar to many other grids across the world. TPC have rightly identified the need for new tools to provide real-time accurate inertia measurement as a crucial component of their renewable energy transition and we look forward to supporting them at every step of their journey to net zero.”
Dr. Wu Chin-Chung, Vice President of Taiwan Power Company, said, “Along with the Taiwan government’s aggressive goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, the decreased system inertia derived from the high penetration rate of renewable energy is a significant challenge to Taipower. Thanks to Reactive Technologies’ inertia measurements, we can now look forward to obtaining the real-time forecast data we need to closely monitor and maintain system stability while connecting more renewables to the power grid.”
Reactive Technologies was founded in Finland and the UK and has deployed its technology in the UK, Japan, Italy, New Zealand, and more recently, Australia. The company expanded to North America in 2022.
About Reactive Technologies
Reactive Technologies is a grid resilience technology company helping grid operators, electric utilities, and regulators transition to net zero and ensure resilient, renewable grids. Reactive’s products, including the first-of-its-kind GridMetrix® technology, bringing unprecedented transparency to grid operations by measuring grid inertia and other functions with 95% accuracy–a vast improvement over the projections and estimates they are replacing. Reactive has worked with some of the most advanced electric utilities in the world and consistently delivers accurate grid data that informs better planning, full utilization of electricity supplies, and cost savings while enabling an accelerated transition to clean energy. Reactive is backed by several of the world’s leading climate tech venture and management firms, including BGF, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Eaton, Toshiba, and Accenture Ventures. Reactive Technologies is a 2022 Bloomberg New Energy Finance Pioneers winner.
