Okay, good morning, good evening, afternoon wherever you are to everybody, I’m Amanda Valenta, I’m a Senior Energy Specialist with the U.S. Agency for International Development and I’m thrilled to welcome you all to our webinar today: Grid Modernization Actions to Improve Renewable Energy Integration. So we're here today because as prices for clean tech and storage continue to fall and nations look for new and innovative ways to curb their emissions we know that integrating higher shares of variable renewable energy is increasingly critical and complex so, next slide please Christine, today through our program through USAID’s program Scaling Up Renewable Energy, we'll aim to discuss the types and sequencing of grid investments that are critical to managing for the flexibility that's needed for successful integration of variable renewable energies. So we'll look at key elements of grid modernization and we're really going to focus in on the implementation components of this puzzle one because we covered a lot of those critical planning and policy regulatory components in a previous webinar and two because we only have one hour so we'll really be trying to tackle kind of the affordable bite-size implementation pieces that are necessary to either start tackling or continue tackling grid modernization in the countries where you work so we'll do this by mapping country-level examples of grid modernization interventions in Kazakhstan, India and Colombia and then really taking some of the common components across those very different country contexts and presenting those that ideally, you'll leave today with a blueprint or a framework for grid modernization that you can apply to the countries where you work. We'll of course have some time toward the end of the webinar for Q&A and discussion, so just a couple of housekeeping items on that note: you can feel free to put your questions in the chat as we're going all of our panel experts are here and can answer in real-time but we will have some dedicated time toward the end of the webinar for discussion and that point we will just ask you to raise your virtual hand come off mute and we'll have a live discussion then, next slide. We have a panel of experts here with us today, I’ll just take a moment to properly introduce them, Arai Monteforte is our director at Tetra Tech and the Chief of Party for the SURE program. She has experience in energy sector reform strategic energy planning and renewable energy projects and also works across a host of MCC projects in western Africa focused on electricity generation distribution transmission as well as the development of electricity sector reform. We have P.K. Agarwal here he's the former director at Power System Operation Corporation Limited in India and plays a key role in the development of India’s power system from both the perspective of electricity market design as well as grid integration and modernization, so we're thrilled to have him here today. Tetra Tech’s Alvaro Lopez-Pena is an Energy Sector Advisor and expert on energy transit transition strategy policy transactions and green growth and Victor Bedoya who's an Energy Sector Senior Associate at Tetra Tech has hands-on experience supporting energy sector reform strategic energy planning as well as climate change and the integration of variable renewable energy, next slide. So, I will just take a few minutes to set the stage for our experts to dive in a little bit deeper starting with our grid flexibility, next slide please, so historically grid flexibility our ability to ramp power up and down in order to accommodate demand comes has come from the supply side from large power offense but what we're here to talk about today is what we're moving toward and moving forward flexibility will come from the grid itself more specifically to that modern grid and this modernized grid ultimately makes variable renewable energy predictable visible and controllable and that's really what we're aiming for and what we're here to talk about today, next slide. So I know we talk about grid modernization typically for the reason of integrating variable renewable energy which is obviously what I’ve harped on for the first couple of minutes already but it's worth noting that there are several reasons to really focus in on this topic aside from integrating higher shares of renewables we also have the management of these distributed energy resources that are already coming online in so many of the countries where we work electric vehicles storage all these types of things and then accommodating new business models also requires a modernized grid so things like the electricity access through mini grids active consumers vehicle to grid services all of these are emerging business models that really require a modernized grid in order to function properly and the one cannot function without the other so it has to be a really combined conversation and then finally in the face of climate change extreme weather events providing secure reliable and resilient electricity is increasingly critical and a modernized grid is a core component of that next slide please none of this is free of course the a modernized grid requires sustained investment right now we know that the world invests about 300 billion us dollars per year and grades roughly two-thirds onto distribution and one-third onto transmission but moving forward we estimate when we being you know our main forecasters from IRENA and Bloomberg estimate that in order to reach those Paris Agreement goals even larger sums of money really have to go to grids really looking at doubling the global investment from between 600 and 700 billion annually through 2050. So this graph just shows the us investment which has steadily risen over the past couple of decades and kind of underpins you know the importance of investing into this very critical space on next slide getting just a little bit more granular before I turn it over to our experts to dive in deeper what is grid modernization what are we aiming to do at you know the higher level and some of these specific objectives and how are we aiming to do it so again the at the highest level the objective of modernizing your grid is to create a smarter faster larger grid that is more flexible and then can integrate these higher shares of renewables more specifically what we're aiming to do focusing today on the integration of variable renewables but we're also that modernized grid also helps you improve operation system operations reducing losses reducing blackouts increasing resilience to climate change lowering costs by creating better enhanced efficiencies across your grid utilizing existing assets and reducing peak demand issues being able having this bigger modernized grid allows you to better integrate with your neighboring markets as well as ensuring workforce productivity and safety through things like geo-tagging your assets and all of those types of things so the how deploying the how kind of falls into these three categories again I mentioned there is this critical side of the equation on the regulations markets processes which we won't tackle today but we will be focusing in on the hardware and the software so the hardware for energy and communications and data and i.t as well as those software components for data management planning analytics and cyber security these are the things that we're really going to dive into across those country examples today and hopefully talk a little bit about at the end so with that I will turn it over to Alvaro to take us a little bit deeper into the key elements of grid modernization. Thank you Amanda for that introduction, hello everyone so this section provides the very basics of grid modernization investment in just three minutes and a couple of slides this is a hugely complex topic so we are only providing the tip of the iceberg and we do this because we want to put you in the mental state required to then introduce our framework and compare country experiences we do so by showing some basic diagrams of what type of investments and systems we are talking about, next slide, please. In a very simple way a modern grid has three key building blocks first intelligent electronic devices that substitute old electromechanical equipment and that allows to remotely visualize and control many parts of the power system please see in the slide how we underlined the words remote visualize and control these are the key words of a modern grid we have also included some metaphors as icons, for example, a remote controller second at the other end you need a modern control center which is what you can see on the bottom part of the slide this is where the people in charge of managing the grid go to work every day these modern control centers have screens and computers instead of papers and telephones as in the old days this is where all the data from intelligent electronic devices is received processed and in instructions are sent back to remote controls this is done through computer software and processes and that processes all the information faster and better than humans third of course you need a two-way communication network that is in between that sends signals between the intelligent electronic devices and the control centers, next slide please. This slide builds on the previous one explaining how everything is put together for fast and remote metering and control the left part of the slide is the before and the right part is the after at the top part you can see a simplified representation of a power system from bulk generation on the left to demand on the right at the bottom is a representation of the control center before on the left with papers and after or on the right with the screens and computers in the before on the left side information to and flow and from the control center flowed through telephones and technicians that had to physically drive to the different places take measurements with their eyes and execute control physically for example with levers these two times minutes or minutes or even longer the increasing complexity of the 21st century power system and the flexibility required for variable renewables integration require an approach that is faster and less error prone in a modern grid on the right side the control center is automatized and the data gathering and control is all done remotely through communications networks which is much faster takes seconds or even less next slide please this slide goes one step further showing a modern grid in a very simplified manner first look at the three green areas bulk generation on the left electricity transmission and distribution at the center top of the slide and users at the right and bottom second the continuous line the black continuous lines show energy flowing through what we have called thick cables that are cables that actually carry the energy while the dotted lines show data flowing through what we call thin cables that are cables only for signals much thinner and third you can see ems for measuring and ps for protection and control next slide please but modernizing grids is far more complex than we what we have explained in the previous slide understanding the key components investments and actions involved can be difficult the language can easily get too technical and there is a clear risk of missing the forest for the trees creating communication barriers between policy makers investors and technical experts resulting in hurdles to implementation therefore we now present a framework that intends to ease the complexity by visually mapping the types and sequence of investments and actions required next slide please with our framework we are trying to move from planning to one step closer to implementation as Amanda said before from the more strategic approach that we took in our previous webinar on grid modernization planning in September today we map specific actions and investments we do it based on a common framework so that all country examples can be compared it is similar to existing frameworks being developed in the united states and in Europe but not widely applied to other regions yet the framework has some simplifications that allow us to not reach an overly technical level of details for the sake of understanding we are trying to hit a sweet spot of being 80 accurate we then apply this framework to three real country examples as Amanda said before which feature different flexibility needs and stages of grid modernization the goal is to identify key components across countries while keeping in mind each country's specificity ultimately this mapping could serve as a blueprint on where to start building understanding support and buying from policy makers and investors next slide please our framework maps investments in three dimensions what where and when a fourth dimensions could be why for example the driver behind each investment which could be as Amanda explained before for instance to reduce losses or to improve cost efficiency here we will assume that the why is to unleash flexibility for valuable renewable energy integration even if there are overlaps and synergies with the other drivers I will now run you through the three main dimensions the what can be either energy hardware what we call thick cables through which energy flows hardware for measuring communications id and data what we call thin cables through which only an electronic signals flow or software which are bits and code for example applications for data management or analysis the wear gives an indication of the location within the power system for example if an investment is done on the demand side on bulk generation or in control centers the when addresses the sequence where it when its investment is required yesterday refers to existing assets needing substitution or reinforcement and that should have been done already today means new assets that are the early backbone of a modern grid and that can be tackled today and tomorrow implies new assets that are the advanced elements of a modern grid and can maybe wait for a bit but keep in mind that these time steps are just a simplification and may mean different things in different countries now in the country examples you will see we will display these dimensions in rows and columns and we will use these tables to map actual investments we will discuss a few of them only the most relevant ones for variable renewal energy integration that are marked in blue lines with a solid red background now let me give the floor to my colleague Arai who will run us through the first country example. Thank you, Alvaro, so yes next I will go through the Kazakhstan case applying the framework that Alvaro just described, next slide please, the government of Kazakhstan has held auction rounds each year since 2018 but parallel to the expansion of wind and solar capacity there has been strong interest and solutions to integrate renewables into the power grid key officials understand that growing variable renewable energy will require the system to have dispatchable flexible capacity next slide, please. KEGOC, the national transmission company, has a clear plan for increasing the flexibility of the power grid and generation before describing some of the key investments and actions that they're putting in place there are some policy aspects to highlight for example Kazakhstan put in place the digital Kazakhstan state program digitalization is a key area needed to build flexibility digital communications and control equipment allow monitoring of outputs of generation units as well as the entire power grid as Alvaro was taking us through in addition digitalized systems allow fast dispatch of flexible resources and if needed curtailment of generation and low there are also plans for balancing market which has operated in test mode in Kazakhstan for several years however until the market for trading flexible services comes online ramping is either uncompensated or rates for ramping up are negotiated with flexible generators and this is actually a very common practice in many of the countries where we work in new flexible generation is also a part of the solution auctions for flexible capacity are being planned and there may also be purchase of flexible hydro energy from the Kyrgyz republic and future renewable auctions are also likely to combine renewable energy with storage facilities, next slide please.

So in terms of hardware for energy Kazakhstan has made several investments and I’ll highlight four changes to the Kazakh power system which are a bit darker on this light so you can follow so first automatic generation control has been installed on five generating units in the country and is being installed at the unit at a unit in the Kyrgyz hydro complex second central emergency automation was installed to ensure the automatic stability of the power system in the event of a disturbance third new flexible generation resources are being deployed and finally energy storage will also be a part of the solution a test storage facility is planned and as I mentioned future renewable energy auctions are likely to combine renewable energy and storage, next slide, please.

I’ll highlight communications data management and control hardware that are being installed these are mostly systems that are comprised of multiple pieces of hardware along with software applications first hardware for communications and control of generating units system stability and distributed resources has been installed and will continue to be augmented second a wide area management is installed and a wide area control system has been recently installed and to enable all of this there were upgrades to telecommunication infrastructure smart meters were deployed and distribution systems and substations are being automated and digitalized, next slide please.

Regarding software a wide range of new applications have been introduced there's a variety of software used for analysis of the system and the impact of performance of renewables and distributed resources there's ongoing work on forecasting and modeling of the power system to determine flexibility and integration issues stability and safety other analytical software include software for the wide area management and the white area control system and software for the balancing market including metering billing settlement of transactions among others this is the simplest of our three cases next our esteemed colleague pk Agarwal will describe the India case thank you hello everyone and thanks array so I will be presenting the case of India and how this India has gone for grid modernization and flexibility for the RE integration next slide, please.

This is a brief overview of Indian system, India is a third largest grid as per capacity of the grid and that is 395 megawatt in 395 gigabyte and then it is managed by 34 control centers it has presently about to 38 point something percent of RE integration the capacity of presently re is of 153 gigawatt India is committed to the 50 percent of total energy through by through non-fossil fuels as per COP 26 and for integration of this much larger capacity of the delivery energy India needs India is focused on good moderation and flexibility in various ways next step please.

So this is some strategies and initiative taken for the great modernization and great integration RE integration of the grid so for one of them is the strategy of upgrading the grid, grid technology, new technologies, upgrading the great protocols that is a great code increasing the balancing area with the with cross-border connections and so that larger balancing area helps in RE integration and there are some initiative like agc renewal remc renewable energy control center dedicated control centers for renewable energy introduction of real-time market dedicated clean energy corridors flexing giving the compensation to the flexing plants some of the major initiative taken and so I will discuss the initiative in the coming slide which is as per our framework next slide, please.

So if you see this hardware of for the energy so there are many initiative has been taken directly or indirectly for the re integration and providing the flexibility to the Indian grid but I will only discuss some more important things like four or five so let us see this one dedicated re transmission a dedicated corridor for connecting remote located re resources to the main grid national grid then second is the advanced sensors advanced sensor known as phasor measurement units which gives which updates the data and con every 20 millisecond as unlike four to six second by scada system so about 1600 pmus has been installed in India and all these are making a vamps wide area monitoring system which is very very helpful in integration of the variable and unpredictable resources because it provides the dynamic condition of the grid pumped storage hydro pump pumped hydro storage is already working in India about 3 gigabyte of capacity is operational and it is helping in shifting time shifting of the peak hours’ time shifting of the energy from off peak hours to peak hours and three gigabyte of pm pump hydro is under construction then pump hydro is always is very difficult to construct and difficult to maintain so now India is going for the grid level battery storage

And about to as per study about 38 gigawatt of four hours capacity is required for integration of 500 plus gigawatt of RE integration in the grid as committed by India for 2030 but presently India has started putting some pilot project and recently a pilot project of 500 megawatt with four-hour capacity has been tendered by the government of India next slide, please

So, I regard for hardware for data measurements and communication, India has been having provided a telecom communication infrastructure wherein every control center and every power plant and every grid control grid substation are connected to the fiber optic with the center control center so this is required for scada system for vamps and for having data from sensors then sufficient automation India started submission automation implementing digital services in 2014. That time it was a simple digitization now they have their India is going for the advanced one version of the digital substation that is along with the process buzz of that then distribution automation is also being done in India with along with this margin so for managing distributed energy resources for managing the self-filling the distribution system etc. then national open-access registry a national opera a very big application for the existing market is being implemented which will aid in the in managing the portfolio of y distribution companies by managing their variability with the open access next slide, please,

And if you see the third part of that framework is software so many software has been implemented for real-time for agc for ancillary services but I will focus on two or three software which is very very important for it then one is the software for RE RE forecasting at an aggregation which has been installed in remc which is renewable energy management center and this software takes the input from three different forecast service provider and which probably might be on different algorithms or different basis of that and then it aggregates that forecast and provides some weightage different weightage to different forecasters based upon its experience of accuracy in the previous days and then comes out with the schedule so this is a mimi

this is a aiml based software which is has been implemented in 11 control centers in India for remc.

Full-fledged based our ancillary services has also been rolled out and which is being the market which is all being rolled out now many software's many forecasting software has been developed by Indian utilities for RE and load forecasting which is being done by different utilities and as regard to cyber security, cyber security is really important for the software or IT systems and India has different sector assets for the generation for transmission for distribution and especially for operations so for operation India has a special search computer emergency response team which is dedicated for the system operation in India and all the great control centers are part of that and NLDC is the head for that managing that

And for the distribution distributed generation resource management India is also implementing distribution energy management centers.

So, I think this is from me I have now, I will a flow to Mr. Victor to have the Colombia case ready thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Agarwal, good morning, everybody I would like to provide an overview of Colombia as a case study for grid modernization and how they are facing the different challenges with the penetration of renewable energy sources sorry next slide please.

Then let's start with some context on the Colombian power system Colombia is a country with around 51 million inhabitants the power system has a peak demand of around 10 gigawatts and the transmission system is composed by voltage levels between 110 kv and 500 kv they have one national grid operator and 57 regional operators the current install capacity is around 18 gigawatts and as you can see the variable rest penetration is very small with only one percent of the total install capacity and the hydro component is very high with almost 70 percent however it is expected that the install capacity will be around 27 gigawatts by 2026 and most of the generation expansion is expected in wind on solar projects, next slide, please.

This is the regulatory background then I think this is one of the main components to start with the grid modernization in countries basically if regulatory rules are clear it will be much easier to attract modernization investment then Colombia has an electricity market since 1994 they are working in updates for the current grid code according to rest technologies and they are also working on the transition from passive energy users to active ones so as a general scheme Colombia had a reliability remuneration mechanism and bilateral contracts and now they successfully implement long-term energy options to incorporate renewables in their system the short-term electricity market has a day-head market and a secondary reserve market controlled by the of course the agc and they are working on an intraday ancillary and balancing market nodal electricity pricing is also under the scope they are working on improvements on the grid code considering large on short-scale rest penetration energy storage and distributed energy resources regarding active energy users Colombia has investigated the demand response energy aggregators and distributed energy resources but this topic is still pretty new in the system next slide, please.

Okay talking about the cardboard for energy as I mentioned before Colombia has a very high component of hydro generation thanks to the number of reservoirs Colombia has in the hydro technology a very good source of flexibility and support for rest penetration however I would like to highlight here some important aspects for the grid modernization and coordination of the power system operation in Colombia first in Colombia is clear the participation of the generation units in frequency containment reserve fcr and frequency restoration reserve fr it may easier the implementation of the automatic generation control another important aspect is the ramp up ramp down characteristics for each generator these characteristics are certified and declared by each generator to the system operator the system monitoring is supported by the skya system and improved by pmis the scada has a replacement schedule close to every 10 years and the last one was in 2018 and they incorporate in this in this new scada system two training rooms for operators the rest of component such as the fox battery storage svcs statcom have been implemented for purposes different than the rest penetration but for sure those will be those will bring additional support once rest penetration starts getting more relevant in the country the pmus has been the booster for advanced protection system and the power system operator is studying the information provided by pm news to implement intelligent protection system in case of major events in addition a dedicated rest transmission system is under construction to interconnect large res projects to the power system next slide, please.

For communications Colombia has all type of communication channels from opi opti-fever to mobile broadband networks to satellite okay most of these channels are full use in the power system and of course a not everything is perfect communication also has limitations due to the topography in the country Colombia has a lot of mountains but in general, the communication channels are good enough there is a transition right now from analogic substation to digital substations and smart meters are moving forward into the system but their incorporation is going very slowly massification of this kind of technology for domestic low is still a challenge next slide, please.

Regarding the software used in Colombia, they use power factory for power system analysis in short medium and long term the sddp and plexus are used for energy security analysis another very important aspect is they had been developed with in-house models to meet particular modeling requirements related to weather phenomena such as El Nino and La Nina the state estimator is available for the operation of the system and as data storage for pmus they are using pi the re forecasts are being taken very serious large res power plants must provide an re forecast for every stage of the future intraday market and the power system operator is also working to obtain its own re forecast and compare with the one provided with the with the generators cyber security is one of the main i.t processes especially for some of the largest system operators in the country and another relevant aspect is the incursion on carbon markets on providing green certification for clean energy producers a program called green rating to investors was recently launched in wall street to promote investment in green technologies in the country this is a new step going forward in this big effort to meet the national determined contributions well this was a short overview of the of some aspects as part of grid modernization in Colombia. I think Alvaro I’m back to you, yes thank you very much, thank you Arai, P.K., and Victor for your country examples. The goal is now to compare countries identifying key components and common traits ultimately sorry ultimately this mapping could serve as a blueprint on where to start but first a warning it has not been easy to find common components because different country experts were using different names for systems that are that are either the same or work very similarly for instance one country expert was referring to fr reserves which are secondary reserves provided by automatic generation control while others were referring to agc itself that is the system and not the service provided this shows the large potential for language barriers in the field of grief moderation investments also it has been a bit hard to divide the investments between hardware for energy hardware for measurement communications id and software because most systems have parts in all three of them, therefore in many cases the difficulties of grid modernization are not only technical but language related once we iterated a few times among ourselves it became easier to find common ground and while different systems have different requirements they are and they are country specificities we did manage to find some common traits next slide please let us recap what investments are found in all countries when it comes to hardware for energy key components are grid sensoring and control systems such as scada that has been implemented in all three countries although with some differentiation in terms of scope they were these scada systems are being substituted or complemented by more advanced measuring systems such as those based on phasor measurement units p and us that are faster and provide a more accurate picture of the status of the grid but they also require a more robust fast and capable communications network another key common investment is automatic generation control providing reserves it is hardware attached to conventional generators that allow them to provide secondary reserve and contribute environment in balancing flexible generation balance in variable generation sorry flexible ac transmission systems facts are other similar and other similar technologies are another common denominator they enable the full use of line capacity while maintaining system stability and providing voltage support dedicated RE transmission lines for bringing power from areas of high resource potential are also found in all three countries and the storage is being assessed or planned for different purposes such as balancing generation and helping in grid management next slide in terms of hardware for measuring communications data and IT. A telecommunications backbone is a key component and it takes many forms but at the basics it needs to be fast have enough capacity be secure and be interoperable substation automation is also another key component seen across countries and more and more countries are also rolling out smart meters that allow for increased demand response at all voltage levels which is a key feature for future flexibility finally another common trait is wide area monitoring systems for pmus nexus live please and lastly in terms of software what things that we have seen very very clearly as common are demand forecasting software and RE forecasting software another key investment seems to be to relate to the standardization of communication protocols also applications for data storage and management are found in all countries and finally cyber security layers are becoming more prominent and we see very interestingly the case of India how they are deploying cyber security in the different components of the power system last next slide please finally let's draw some conclusions countries implement crit modernization for a variety of reasons the why we discussed earlier synergies exist so countries that are started for other reasons can have an advantage when tackling grid modernization for renewable energy integration such as the case of Colombia there is no single implementation no architecture is correct and it is very country dependent there are also different paradigms and terminologies so more effort into this type of mapping and comparison exercises could help in building in developing best practices and harmonizing terminology however we have found some common some overlaps which are the following first existing bulk generation can provide flexibility without much hardware modifications grid modernization measures to tap into it include ramp control automated generation control and related communications and control systems and commercial settlements settlement systems for instance to meter account for and pay for the ramping services provided second remote visibility and control is another key area of investment much of what has been implemented globally is based on scada systems but there is a discussion today on whether scada can be leap-frogged already future systems may require something faster that covers distributed energy resources and that allows for bi-directional energy flows next slide please another common investment refers to advanced sensors that allow system operators to gain visibility on grid health and on the impacts of renewable energy generation on power quality for instance phasor measurement units pmus forecasting systems for renewable energy and demand are also key and they allow to understand amount the amount and types of flexibility services required a communications backbone is also fundamental and it has to be fast able to handle big high volumes of the data secure and interoperable finally investments in data storage and management and in cyber security are also common all in all this type of mapping exercises and then what that have we have carried out has allowed us to gain some insight into grid modernization actions that could be taken for variable renewal energy integration, thank you very much, next slide,

And now we go to Q&A.

And Alvaro before you kick off Q&A I just wanted to take a moment to properly introduce Alan Eisendrath who is here, he's been answering some of the questions in the chat and he's here on the panel to help answer a few more questions, he's a Senior Energy Advisor at Tetra Tech we have pulled him out of his retirement to be with us today and provide some insights right now, he's consulting on energy and infrastructure reform privatization and finance by providing strategic guidance technical assistance and political and institutional advice so just letting everybody know that Alan is on board here to answer questions as well and I’ll turn it back to you, Alvaro.

Okay so we have quite a few questions in the in the chat, thank you very much everyone for the questions and for attending here, so how do we do this, most of them, many of them have been answered in the chat already I think first of all something that it is important to and Grayson have asked this question, but it's important to underline policies and markets are required probably earlier than grid modernization investments and they are certainly the first way or the first thing to look at so in increasing granularity of markets and developing markets for balancing increasing improving the way policies work great codes these sort of things however today the focus of the webinar was mostly on investments for good modernization as Amanda explained before, so yeah that's the first thing that I wanted to explain, then what about, maybe P.K. wants to take the question on India that John has asked?

Yes, he's right that market is required before the investment of flexibility because if a market is there then only we will prepare the RE generations and then when RE generation has already been come to the grid then we require the flexibility but a study shows that about 20 percent of penetration in RE penetration the date can be handled with the present flexibility whatever flexibility is there only existing in the grid can be handled up to 20 percent so for recurring that 20 percent RE will require a market.

Did I answer my question either his question or something else?

Yeah, John if you feel that your question has not been answered please type it and we can keep answering however I will now shoot a question to Allen who is here, what are some of the first no regret investments that can be assessed in your opinion?

Mike that's a great question, and in fact, that's exactly where we started with this entire webinar: what are some of the first and most important early investments in flexibility? I think what we found in the cases is that automated generation control is one of the first investments and then of course you need the communications and the system operator applications and systems to manage agc in addition no regret investments include some relatively low-cost modifications to high storage hydro and thermal plants for example in India you can they've done some things with thermal plants to increase their flexibility and to decrease the damage that ramping does to the equipment.

Thank you very much Alan, a question maybe for Amanda here, it's in terms of financing for grid modernization investments

Alvaro, we answered that in the chat a couple of times so I think we can move on pretty quickly but just to note that USAID really works on the enabling environment components of all of these spaces including competitive procurement de-risking the investments and general capacity building for our partners in-country but we don't typically directly finance renewables, okay but Alvaro there's a great question I’m just seeing it's not in the chat but in the specific Q&A component from Grayson Hefner Grayson you had several questions I’m not sure if you want to actually come offline and ask this last one talking about the economic carrying capacity for VRE, that might be a good one to clarify for folks?

So yeah, thanks, thanks for giving me a second here, so I want to compliment the presenters and Tetra Tech and USAID on this work it's really really interesting and something that that is really beneficial to everybody that's working in this field to see real case studies of how utilities have begun the journey towards, you know greener a greener grid and more more renewable energy so great stuff thank you thank you so much for sharing via this webinar I just had a quick question on the economic caring concept economic caring concept for VRE is something that NREL talked about some earlier reports and I’m just wondering you know as you add more as you invest in more and more grid modernization again higher and higher levels of VRE at a certain point it becomes economically difficult to sustain did you did you notice anything about this in the three case studies and are there things about certain systems that that would have a have an economic care result and economic care and capacity being higher than others so I’m just curious on that point, thank you.

Maybe Alan you want to start? Yeah, I’ll make a comment on that, often people don't realize at the outset that there's a huge amount of flexibility in the existing generation fleet and so one of the ways India actually did an absolutely great job of measuring the flexibility of their coal plants specifically to use it to balance the rapidly increasing RE and P.K. could give you more on that we also Tetra Tech did testing in Ukraine of the flexibility of the entire generation fleet and we're beginning the same thing in Kazakhstan now so that's actually a very cheap and fast source of some flexibility but it's usually not enough.

Yeah, you were right in India flexibility has been caught got from cold thermal plant without any investment as mentioned before also that with the regulation we could run this power plan coal thermal power plant by up to 55 it's capacity 55 percent of its capacity which we are running about not running going down then 70 to 80 percent of this capacity only what but regulated regulators did that they give some compensation because of the deteriorating heat rate of the plant at the lower minimum level so like this India has taken the flexibility from the existing power plants so I would like to also add here that in Colombia at the beginning they also talk if maybe there could be a limit for rest penetration in the country according to the flexibility of the of the power system and then one main aspect is also is always try to know or try to assess what's the flexibility capacity that you have in the country in in order to know what's the breast penetration that you can that that you can afford or that that you are able to manage with your power system.

Victor now that you're talking why don't you please also answer the last question that Sarah Lawson asked on how can hydro via variability be managed in Colombia with increasing climate risk on hydropower El Nino La Nina etc.? Hydro generation, thank you so much for this question on and hydro is a very important component for flexibility everybody thinks because you can have a very tight ramp up ramp down with hydro generation you can think that it's very easy and the system is very flexible but once you start considering all the restrictions environmental restrictions that you are having for hydro generation then you're just realize that maybe you can start considering the hydro generation as thermal generation for flexibility purposes okay so that's a very interesting topic and then for the hydro generation we'll start we start considering or including a lot of restrictions related to climate change-related to these weather phenomenons that maybe this is going to decrease the flexibility capacity of this technology for the power systems.

Thank you so much everybody, we are at time as always happens, thank you so much to all of the panelists for sharing, and thank you to everybody who joined, and for all of your great questions, I will just quickly say we have we do have a brief evaluation at the end it's in the chatbox if you could take 30 seconds to complete that it helps us do better and get to some more of these questions next time. We have a couple of resources coming out from shore the most prominent one is a technical brief on grid modernization that will be available soon and you can always go to the shore website usaid.gov/energy to learn more about any of this work or contact any of us for additional support, so thank you again, everybody, for your time this morning and we hope to see you soon on another webinar!

Thank you!