ESG is supporting USAID’s Papua New Guinea Electrification Partnership (PEP) to improve utility company operations throughout the country. We are excited to share that ESG’s Kiran Sabbineni recently spent time in Papua New Guinea to train Papua New Guinea Power Limited (PPL) engineers on Power System Analysis software. PPL is the country’s power authority responsible for generation, transmission, distribution and retailing of electricity.

Through consultations and training sessions with PPL’s planning and National System Operations (NSO) teams, ESG developed an accurate base case model of PPL’s grid. The training sessions helped PPL’s planning and NSO teams align on system-level data and helped the planning team identify constraints and expansion planning priorities, while the NSO team could recognize and correct inconsistencies with data and forecasting.

One of the major outcomes of the sessions was developing the first “as-built” base case model for PPL’s grid. This model will be essential for the NSO team’s power system analysis and design, stability analysis, control, and monitoring, as well as for the planning team’s system planning, load forecasting, renewable energy integration, and emergency planning, among other functions.

The collaboration also furthered specifications of the planned grid expansion, which will include four main scenarios to provide a roadmap for PPL’s future development.

ESG’s training for PPL’s staff allows them to achieve self-sufficiency in data collection, system development, model building, validation, application, and other complex analyses. The collaboration between ESG and PPL has strengthened PPL’s capabilities to improve Papua New Guinea’s energy infrastructure.

Photo: ESG’s Kiran Sabbineni training PPL engineers on Power System Analysis software.