Originally developed with Australia's Energy Market Operator (AEMO) and leading research institutions in 2022, Australia’s Global Power System Transformation (G-PST) Research Roadmap details the research required to support Australia's transition to a stable, secure and affordable power system. In 2025, the Global Power System Transformation (GPST) initiative evolved and in Australia, now operates as the Australian Research in Power Systems Transition (AR-PST) under the continued leadership of CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).
Our global energy transition
The world has been undergoing a clean energy transition at unprecedented speed, scope and scale. Making the transition requires collective problem solving across the value chain – from academia, to industry experts, to global system operators. Overcoming the challenges involved is urgent and vitally important for Australia, and the world.
Our major challenge is no longer the cost of renewable energy, instead, it is how to integrate this energy into our electricity systems. With plans for scaling back fossil fuel-based power over the next decades, the pressure is on to ensure the security, reliability and stability of Australia's future power systems with a high proportion of inverter-based resources.
The hurdles involved range from solving technical issues, through to workforce training and developing new real-time operational tools. By tackling these challenges –in a collaborative way and sharing outcomes widely, Australian scientists and researchers are leading the way. Working together, we can ensure energy security for Australia during the energy transition while creating jobs, investment, export opportunities, earning global recognition and, most importantly, massively accelerating the transition to a low emissions electricity sector.
The G-PST Consortium and Australia's leadership
The international Global Power System Transformation (G-PST) Consortium was officially announced on April 21, 2021 with the visionary goal to "dramatically accelerate the transition to low emission and low cost, secure, and reliable power systems, contributing to less than 50 per cent emission reductions over the next 10 years, with $2 billion of government and donor support for technical, market, and workforce solutions that unlock $10 trillion+ of private sector investment". The Consortium was led by the US and UK and has focused on solving the most pressing challenges to accelerate the decarbonisation of electricity system around the world.
CSIRO and AEMO worked with Australian and international research organisations to deliver Australia’s G-PST Research Roadmap. Working together, we invited and have been driving Australian universities and research institutions, and international research institutes to solve the most pressing challenges in order to accelerate the decarbonisation of our electricity system.
These challenges informed the identification of nine research topics:
- Inverter Design – Development of capabilities, services, design methodologies and standards for Inverter-Based Resources (IBRs) to ensure power system reliability.
- Stability Tools and Methods – New tools and methods are required to ensure reliability, security and stability in power systems with more IBRs, as traditional synchronous machines continue to be phased out.
- Control Room of the Future – Development of new technologies and approaches for enhanced real-time visibility and analysis in power system operator control rooms.
- Planning – New planning metrics, methods, and tools to capture the characteristics and influence of a changing resource mix.
- Restoration and Black Start – Creating new procedures for black starting and restoring a power system with high or 100% IBR penetration.
- Services – Quantifying the technical service requirements of future power systems to maintain the supply-demand balance reliably and at least cost with higher penetration of renewables.
- Architecture – Identifying appropriate future power system architectures for coordinating new technology capability, regulatory approaches, market design, and the distribution/transmission interface in a highly distributed, variable renewable energy-based system to support an orderly power system transition.
- Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) – Investigating the challenges and opportunities from very high levels of DERs to make power system control and operation more effective.
- DERs and Stability – Modelling and analysis of DER dynamic responses to ensure system operators can maintain power system security under very high DER penetration.
Australia's Research Roadmap for Power System Transformation (AR-PST)
Working with leading Australian and international engineering, academic and research partners, CSIRO and AEMO produced a Research Roadmap that incorporates research plans for the nine most pressing research topics. The Roadmap shows how Australia could lead the way in solving the global challenge of integrating renewable energy into electricity networks and accelerating the decarbonisation of the energy sector.
Specifically, the whole Research Roadmap provides both high-level and detailed descriptions of the purpose and objectives of each of the nine research plans, including the high priority tasks proposed to be delivered in the short term. The nine research plans and the accompanying documents also outline why the research specified in the Roadmap is critical to Australia, how the outcomes apply to Australia, and how Australian research can contribute to the meeting the Consortium’s goals. In addition, the expected timeline and associated risks to deliver the Research Roadmap are identified.
Progress on the Research Roadmap
The Research Roadmap is being put into action, helping to facilitate Australia’s transition to a stable, secure and affordable power system. The research completed to date confirms that a huge body of work is needed across the industry over the next several decades. This will require a significant increase in the depth and breadth of power system engineering expertise both in academia and industry. Our work is helping build the foundation for this.
Interim Reports have been written for Stage 4 and summarise the progress, insights, and achievements of eight CSIRO funded research projects carried out during 2024 and provide guidance to the scope of research for Stage 5 work.
The AR-PST research is strategically targeted to enhance energy sector research that will support stable acceleration of the energy transition underway in Australia, and globally.
The eight Stage 4 interim projects represent the fourth year of implementation of the original CSIRO GPST Research Roadmap published in 2021.
The information has been provided by the research organisations appointed by CSIRO to lead each of the research topics.
Access reports from the first two years of research:
AR-PST Stage 4 Interim Reports
The interim reports:
- Explain the critical need for this research to support the acceleration of the energy transition underway in Australia, and globally.
- Establish clearly what has been done in the research topic to the end of 2024, since commencement in May 2024.
- Summarise what is scheduled to be completed in each research topic until contract end in April 2025.
- Place the current stage of research in context of the CSIRO Research Plan that was developed in 2021.
- Suggest any changes or adaptation to the original research roadmap published in 2021 as a result of factors such as research outcomes, advances in relevant technology, or energy policy and regulation changes.
- Recommend high priority future work for this topic for the next round of research scheduled for 2025/26
Final AR-PST Stage 4 Reports
The Final AR-PST Stage 4 Reports will be published mid-2025.
AR-PST Stage 4 Interim Reports by topic:
- Topic 1: Advanced inverter applications (and requirements) for current-limited grid-forming inverters
- Topic 1a: Advanced inverter technical standards
- Topic 2: Analytical methods for determination of stable operation of IBRs in a future power system
- Topic 4: Planning
- Topic 5: System restoration
- Topic 6: Services
- Topic 7: Power System Architecture
- Topic 8: Distributed Energy Resources
- Topic 9: Distributed Energy Resource and Stability
Control Room of the Future
The research topic 3 on Control Room of the Future was not progressed in 2024/25. Topic 3 research is continuing and will be reported upon in the 2025/26 stage. An additional research task on Technical Standards was included as part of work on Topic 1: Advanced Inverters.
Request accessibility assistance
Some elements of the documents included on this page may not be accessible to assistive technologies. Please contact us to request further accessibility assistance.
Originally developed with Australia's Energy Market Operator (AEMO) and leading research institutions in 2022, Australia’s Global Power System Transformation (G-PST) Research Roadmap details the research required to support Australia's transition to a stable, secure and affordable power system. In 2025, the Global Power System Transformation (GPST) initiative evolved and in Australia, now operates as the Australian Research in Power Systems Transition (AR-PST) under the continued leadership of CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).
Our global energy transition
The world has been undergoing a clean energy transition at unprecedented speed, scope and scale. Making the transition requires collective problem solving across the value chain – from academia, to industry experts, to global system operators. Overcoming the challenges involved is urgent and vitally important for Australia, and the world.
Our major challenge is no longer the cost of renewable energy, instead, it is how to integrate this energy into our electricity systems. With plans for scaling back fossil fuel-based power over the next decades, the pressure is on to ensure the security, reliability and stability of Australia's future power systems with a high proportion of inverter-based resources.
The hurdles involved range from solving technical issues, through to workforce training and developing new real-time operational tools. By tackling these challenges –in a collaborative way and sharing outcomes widely, Australian scientists and researchers are leading the way. Working together, we can ensure energy security for Australia during the energy transition while creating jobs, investment, export opportunities, earning global recognition and, most importantly, massively accelerating the transition to a low emissions electricity sector.
The G-PST Consortium and Australia's leadership
The international Global Power System Transformation (G-PST) Consortium was officially announced on April 21, 2021 with the visionary goal to "dramatically accelerate the transition to low emission and low cost, secure, and reliable power systems, contributing to less than 50 per cent emission reductions over the next 10 years, with $2 billion of government and donor support for technical, market, and workforce solutions that unlock $10 trillion+ of private sector investment". The Consortium was led by the US and UK and has focused on solving the most pressing challenges to accelerate the decarbonisation of electricity system around the world.
CSIRO and AEMO worked with Australian and international research organisations to deliver Australia’s G-PST Research Roadmap. Working together, we invited and have been driving Australian universities and research institutions, and international research institutes to solve the most pressing challenges in order to accelerate the decarbonisation of our electricity system.
These challenges informed the identification of nine research topics:
- Inverter Design – Development of capabilities, services, design methodologies and standards for Inverter-Based Resources (IBRs) to ensure power system reliability.
- Stability Tools and Methods – New tools and methods are required to ensure reliability, security and stability in power systems with more IBRs, as traditional synchronous machines continue to be phased out.
- Control Room of the Future – Development of new technologies and approaches for enhanced real-time visibility and analysis in power system operator control rooms.
- Planning – New planning metrics, methods, and tools to capture the characteristics and influence of a changing resource mix.
- Restoration and Black Start – Creating new procedures for black starting and restoring a power system with high or 100% IBR penetration.
- Services – Quantifying the technical service requirements of future power systems to maintain the supply-demand balance reliably and at least cost with higher penetration of renewables.
- Architecture – Identifying appropriate future power system architectures for coordinating new technology capability, regulatory approaches, market design, and the distribution/transmission interface in a highly distributed, variable renewable energy-based system to support an orderly power system transition.
- Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) – Investigating the challenges and opportunities from very high levels of DERs to make power system control and operation more effective.
- DERs and Stability – Modelling and analysis of DER dynamic responses to ensure system operators can maintain power system security under very high DER penetration.
Australia's Research Roadmap for Power System Transformation (AR-PST)
Working with leading Australian and international engineering, academic and research partners, CSIRO and AEMO produced a Research Roadmap that incorporates research plans for the nine most pressing research topics. The Roadmap shows how Australia could lead the way in solving the global challenge of integrating renewable energy into electricity networks and accelerating the decarbonisation of the energy sector.
Specifically, the whole Research Roadmap provides both high-level and detailed descriptions of the purpose and objectives of each of the nine research plans, including the high priority tasks proposed to be delivered in the short term. The nine research plans and the accompanying documents also outline why the research specified in the Roadmap is critical to Australia, how the outcomes apply to Australia, and how Australian research can contribute to the meeting the Consortium’s goals. In addition, the expected timeline and associated risks to deliver the Research Roadmap are identified.
Progress on the Research Roadmap
The Research Roadmap is being put into action, helping to facilitate Australia’s transition to a stable, secure and affordable power system. The research completed to date confirms that a huge body of work is needed across the industry over the next several decades. This will require a significant increase in the depth and breadth of power system engineering expertise both in academia and industry. Our work is helping build the foundation for this.
Interim Reports have been written for Stage 4 and summarise the progress, insights, and achievements of eight CSIRO funded research projects carried out during 2024 and provide guidance to the scope of research for Stage 5 work.
The AR-PST research is strategically targeted to enhance energy sector research that will support stable acceleration of the energy transition underway in Australia, and globally.
The eight Stage 4 interim projects represent the fourth year of implementation of the original CSIRO GPST Research Roadmap published in 2021.
The information has been provided by the research organisations appointed by CSIRO to lead each of the research topics.
Access reports from the first two years of research:
AR-PST Stage 4 Interim Reports
The interim reports:
- Explain the critical need for this research to support the acceleration of the energy transition underway in Australia, and globally.
- Establish clearly what has been done in the research topic to the end of 2024, since commencement in May 2024.
- Summarise what is scheduled to be completed in each research topic until contract end in April 2025.
- Place the current stage of research in context of the CSIRO Research Plan that was developed in 2021.
- Suggest any changes or adaptation to the original research roadmap published in 2021 as a result of factors such as research outcomes, advances in relevant technology, or energy policy and regulation changes.
- Recommend high priority future work for this topic for the next round of research scheduled for 2025/26
Final AR-PST Stage 4 Reports
The Final AR-PST Stage 4 Reports will be published mid-2025.
AR-PST Stage 4 Interim Reports by topic:
- Topic 1: Advanced inverter applications (and requirements) for current-limited grid-forming inverters PDF (209 KB)
- Topic 1a: Advanced inverter technical standards PDF (240 KB)
- Topic 2: Analytical methods for determination of stable operation of IBRs in a future power system PDF (906 KB)
- Topic 4: Planning PDF (488 KB)
- Topic 5: System restoration PDF (271 KB)
- Topic 6: Services PDF (201 KB)
- Topic 7: Power System Architecture PDF (1 MB)
- Topic 8: Distributed Energy Resources PDF (516 KB)
- Topic 9: Distributed Energy Resource and Stability PDF (2 MB)
Control Room of the Future
The research topic 3 on Control Room of the Future was not progressed in 2024/25. Topic 3 research is continuing and will be reported upon in the 2025/26 stage. An additional research task on Technical Standards was included as part of work on Topic 1: Advanced Inverters.
Request accessibility assistance
Some elements of the documents included on this page may not be accessible to assistive technologies. Please contact us to request further accessibility assistance.