Case Study: Transpower achieves reliable New Zealand grid operation and optimized reserve management with MathWorks MATLAB and Simulink

Transpower Ensures Reliability of New Zealand National Grid with Reserve Management Tool

Transpower, which owns and operates New Zealand’s national grid, faced the challenge of precisely calculating the minimum reserve needed to keep system frequency at 50 Hz and avoid outages while minimizing cost. After relying on inflexible, manual spreadsheets, Transpower turned to MathWorks tools—primarily MATLAB and Simulink—to develop an in‑house Reserve Management Tool (RMT) that could be updated rapidly as the grid changed.

Using MathWorks products, Transpower built a complete Simulink model of the grid (about 80 generators, loads, and HVDC links), tuned controllers with Control System Toolbox, and produced a standalone executable via MATLAB Compiler and Simulink Coder integrated with their Scheduling Price Dispatch. RMT runs every 30 minutes and is validated with measured grid data; as a result, Transpower implemented 18 critical updates in a year, improved model accuracy and reserve estimates, and achieved better cost‑reliability tradeoffs while keeping updates and sensitive data in‑house.

Transpower

Heidi Heath

Investigations Engineer