During my internship with the Australian Energy Market Operator, I worked within the Queensland Onboarding and Connections team. Before starting, my understanding of AEMO was largely shaped by the control room perspective, the people who keep the lights on and operate the grid in real time. However, I quickly realised that this represents only a small portion of AEMO’s responsibilities. My time in the Connections team gave me a deeper appreciation of both the complexity of AEMO’s role and the unique challenges inherent to Australia’s energy system. Australia’s grid is unlike many others around the world. Our transmission network spans vast distances, connecting load centres separated by thousands of kilometres and have extreme climate events. We also face the legacy of heavy reliance on thermal generation, political dynamics around the energy transition and increasing technical challenges as renewable penetration accelerates. As the grid shifts to a system dominated by inverter based resources, new issues such as minimum system demand, system strength shortfalls, weak grid conditions and declining synchronous inertia are becoming increasingly prominent. These challenges highlighted for me just how delicate and interconnected the evolving power system truly is and the importance of the work AEMO does. Within the Onboarding and Connections team, my role centred on understanding how new solar, batteries, wind and hybrid plants are assessed before they can connect to the grid. Today, inverter based resources must assist the grid during contingency conditions, which mandates strict voltage and frequency disturbance ride-through capabilities for distributed energy resources. This becomes important to achieve net zero in maintaining strict standards as traditional synchronous plants won’t be available to maintain system inertia. This is where the importance of connections engineering comes into play. Much of the team’s work involves reviewing technical packages submitted by project proponents to verify that their plant design, control systems and models comply with NER standards and can operate reliably under a range of network contingency conditions. Throughout my internship, I worked in engineering teams to review these submissions and performed due diligence checks using simulation tools such as PSSE and PSCAD. This gave me valuable hands on exposure to power system modelling and reinforced how critical these assessments are. Ultimately, the grid is only as strong as its weakest link, and thorough technical scrutiny helps reduce the likelihood of instability or widespread outages. Overall, this internship has deepened my technical understanding, exposed me to the operational realities of the energy transition and strengthened my appreciation for the role AEMO plays in shaping Australia’s energy future.