The grid is changing faster than traditional engineering workflows can absorb

Australia's power system is changing quickly. In policy discussions, that change is often described in terms of investment, markets, emissions targets, and new generation. For power engineers, it is much more physical than that. The grid is being rebuilt around different machines, different controls, and different electrical behaviour.

A more physical grid

Wind, solar, batteries, large power electronic loads, and data centres are now a normal part of the system. They are essential to the energy transition. They also behave very differently from the synchronous machines and conventional loads that shaped much of the legacy grid.

As synchronous machines retire, the grid depends more on inverter-based resources and power electronic converters. These devices can respond very quickly and provide important capabilities. But their controls can also interact with each other, and with the surrounding network, in ways that are difficult to see until late in a connection study or during operation.

Oscillatory stability in converter-heavy systems

Oscillatory stability is a good example. Power systems have always had oscillations, and engineers have long had methods to study and damp them. What has changed is where some of these oscillations come from. In inverter-heavy parts of the grid, instability can arise from interactions between converter controls, network impedance, and other connected equipment.

A time-domain simulation may show the symptom: an oscillation. Operating data may show the same thing. But the harder question is why it is happening. Which controller is involved? Which interface matters? Which part of the system is contributing to the problem? Those are the questions that become harder as the grid becomes more converter-dominated.

Existing workflows still matter

Existing engineering workflows still matter. EMT studies, RMS studies, system strength assessments, connection studies, and engineering judgement are not going away. GridZync was not started because those tools are obsolete. It was started because engineers increasingly need another diagnostic lens. They need tools that help explain the cause of an oscillation, not just confirm that one exists.

Research foundation at Monash University

The origins of GridZync go back to several years of research, development, and industry engagement at Monash University.

The first major step was the Monash-led Stability Enhancing Measures for Weak Grids Study, which began in 2020 with support from ARENA. That project looked at the challenges of connecting inverter-connected plants, including wind farms, solar farms, and batteries, into weak parts of the electricity grid. It covered system strength, weak-grid behaviour, synchronous condensers, grid-forming inverters, grid-following inverters, and interactions between power electronic converter-connected assets.

That work helped frame the technical problem we have kept coming back to: how do we maintain stability and reliability as the grid becomes more converter-dominated?

At the time, much of the weak-grid discussion focused on connection delays, curtailment, and system strength remediation. Those issues are important. But underneath them sits a more fundamental engineering challenge. In a converter-rich grid, stability is not only about physical network strength or synchronous machine behaviour. It is also about control design, control interaction, and what happens when many individually well-designed devices operate together through a changing network.

Bringing oscillation diagnostics into industry workflows

The second stage began in 2023 with the Monash-led Monash Grid Oscillation Project, also supported by ARENA. This project focused more directly on oscillatory issues in Australia's National Electricity Market and on software methods for finding the root causes of instability.

That was an important shift. The work moved from research investigation toward practical software development. It was no longer enough to show that advanced analysis methods could work in principle. The question became whether those methods could be made useful in the studies, models, and day-to-day workflows that industry engineers actually deal with.

That work led to the development and validation of Rezonance, a professional impedance-based stability analysis tool for inverter-based resources.

Why impedance-based analysis matters

Impedance-based stability analysis can sound abstract, but the idea is practical. Instead of looking only at waveforms in the time domain, the method uses frequency-domain impedance information extracted from simulation models. It looks at how devices and networks respond across a range of frequencies, then uses that information to assess whether their interaction is stable. When an interaction is problematic, the method can help identify where it is coming from and which parts of the system are contributing to it.

This is especially useful for inverter-rich systems, because many stability issues are driven by interacting control loops. A time-domain simulation can show that an oscillation occurs. Impedance-based analysis helps explain the interaction mechanism behind it.

From research to product

But a research tool, even a technically strong one, is not the same thing as an industry product.

That is why GridZync was formed.

Industry needs more than algorithms. It needs maintained software, clear documentation, onboarding, user support, validation, licensing, repeatable workflows, and long term accountability. Engineers need tools that fit into established study processes. Organisations need confidence that a method has been tested, explained, supported, and improved over time. They also need a company that owns the product, listens to users, and keeps developing it as the grid changes.

GridZync was created to take several years of Monash research and ARENA-supported development and turn it into practical software for real engineering work. Monash led the research and development projects that established the technical foundation. GridZync is the spin-out company commercialising Rezonance and continuing to develop it for industry use.

We do not see GridZync simply as the commercialisation of a grant outcome. That would be too narrow. The company exists because the industry need is real, the technical work has reached the point where it can be productised, and the commercial opportunity is growing as inverter-based resources become central to modern power systems.

The next stage

The third stage is now the GridZync-led Rezonance: Impedance-Based Stability Assessment project, beginning in 2026 with ARENA support. This project focuses on enhancing and commercialising Rezonance so that impedance-based stability analysis becomes more accessible and usable for power engineers.

Our goal is not to replace engineers. It is not to replace EMT studies or established simulation platforms. Rezonance is designed to work alongside those tools and workflows. It gives engineers a specialist diagnostic capability for investigating inverter-driven stability risks earlier, more systematically, and with more confidence.

That matters across the sector. System operators need to manage power system security. Network companies need to assess new connections and future operating conditions. Consultants need to run detailed studies. Renewable developers need to progress projects through connection processes. OEMs need to tune and validate control systems. Industrial grid owners need to manage complex sites. Advanced simulation users need better ways to study the frontier of renewable integration.

The common need is insight. As the grid becomes more inverter-rich, stability assessment cannot rely only on finding problems after they appear. Engineers need better ways to screen systems, diagnose problems, compare options, and understand control interactions before they become operational or commercial constraints.

That is the role we want GridZync to play.

Our mission is to build specialist stability intelligence tools for modern, inverter-rich power systems. Rezonance is our first major product, but the ambition is larger than one tool. We want to help the energy transition by improving confidence in how renewable-rich grids are planned, connected, studied, and operated.

The grid is changing faster than traditional engineering workflows can comfortably absorb. The answer is not to abandon those workflows. It is to strengthen them with better diagnostic capability.

That is why we started GridZync: to put practical, technically rigorous stability intelligence in the hands of the engineers and organisations building the power system of the future.