Speaking at the Energy in WA conference this week she noted the profound challenges of managing a system now full of millions of data points, but designed to handle large scale generation from a handful of power plants.
"We're off the chart in terms of the pace of change," she said.
"If you were an operator and you had a Sunday afternoon shift you had your feet up and could relax because it was low load and you had lots of generation and it's a nice day," she told the room.
"When we have Sunday afternoons now and it's sunny, what we're worried about and it's never been an issue us… it's low load and low demand. We worry about the voltage. And we work closely with Western Power, with Synergy."
There is a real possibility the system could go to black, and it might be coming faster than expected.
Without management now, Zibelman expects it could happen by the mid-2020s.
"We're going to have real challenges running the power system because demand will be so low.
"So what we need to is implement the changes now. These are security issues, they're not economic, ones."
"How do you maintain a power system that was developed around synchronous generation with a system that is asynchronous and variable?"
"Getting visibility of resources (is important), if we don't have information in the system we have to operate it conservatively."
"Our systems were built in the 90s they can't deal with the level of data."
She said data, analytics and AI will need to play a far larger role moving forward, and that AEMO works closely with the Bureau of Meteorology in all states, so it can make better forecasts.
Cloud cover might force solar go on and off.
Digital twins, to make better forecasts across both the SWIS and the National Energy Market in the interconnected eastern states also matters, especially if climate change predictions of increasing inclement weather are correct and long life assets will have to deal with greater risk of bushfires or 50C days.
"The complexity of the challenges facing the industry can be overwhelming."
