UK – 3MW Solar Enabled at Constrained HV Site

GridGEM Enables Solar Project at Industrial Site with Significant Physical & Connection Constraints

Overview & Client Problem

Solar Sense (http://www.solarsense-uk.com/) were contracted by Renishaw UK (https://www.renishaw.com/) to install solar photovoltaics (PV) at 3 sites. Each site had Grid export constraints. This project was made complex due to the existence of multiple high voltage (HV) incoming electrical supplies and inverter positions in multiple locations that were a significant distance from the HV monitoring points.

The DNO would not allow the project to go ahead unless a solution could be found to monitor all the HV Grid connection points simultaneously, aggregate them together, and then communicate with and control the different inverters in a way that was acceptable by the DNO to meet G100 requirements.

The client also needed data to provide assurance and performance reports for their asset owners.

 
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Argand’s Solution

Argand designed, built and delivered a turnkey GridGEM export limitation control solution for the project. Argand implemented their “no shut down” HV monitoring solution (which was approved by the DNO) - this ensured that the high value industrial site did not need to be shut-down when the system was connected. The GridGEM technology interfaced with the remote inverter control interfaces using fibre optics due to the distances between the multiple high voltage (HV) import / export incoming supplies to ensure that the system met the DNO’s response time requirements. The output of the solar inverters across the physically distant locations was managed dynamically and utilised a “fail safe” if the solar could not be reduced quickly enough due to on-site rapid power fluctuations. The GridGEM solution was fully G100 and G59 (G99 now) compliant.

Client Benefits

The result has been to enable the client to install solar PV within a complex HV site network without the need for a shut down or to significantly upgrade the HV sub-stations. The project would not have gone ahead if the client did not have a solution that could meet all the complex needs. This has meant that the project has been able to take place - leading to significant electrical energy cost savings and CO2 reductions at the site.