UK – 850kW Wind Turbine Private Wire

GridGEM enables Constrained Private Wire Connection for Wind Turbine

Overview & Client Problem

Royal Mint (www.royalmint.com) were offered a connection to a local wind turbine to provide electrical energy on a power purchase agreement (PPA).

The Royal Mint site was given a zero export limit by the DNO. This meant that the client required a solution to manage the connection of the wind turbine to their own private high voltage (HV) network such that the net result of demand less generation never led to the export of power through their own connection to the Grid.

The client also needed data to provide assurance and a better understanding of their network.

 
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Argand’s Solution

Argand designed, built and delivered a turnkey GridGEM export limitation control and monitoring solution for the project. The GridGEM technology directly interfaced with the control panel within the wind turbine using fibre optic communications due to the distance from the Royal Mint’s main incoming supply. The site was subject to a zero export limit. In the case of demand being too low for the turbine for a specified period of time, an automatic disconnection from the private wire was also incorporated to provide a “fail safe” application. The GridGEM also utilised Argand’s “no shut down” HV monitoring to ensure the site did not need a shutdown.The GridGEM was fully G100 and G59 (now G99) compliant. In addition, the GridGEM system incorporated a full monitoring system to collect, store, transmit and process the electrical data from the Royal Mint’s main incoming supply to provide the engineering team with greater insight into their electrical energy usage & power quality. This data is visualised via Argand’s GridEYE platform. Argand have developed client specific analysis to provide regular performance reporting and have initiated real-time electrical health alerts.

Client Benefits

The project did not require a shut-down ofthe plant - saving the client production time and, as a consequence, money. The project has enabled the client to access much lower electrical energy costs via the wind turbine PPA. This would not have been possible without Argand’s GridGEM solution. The client also receives real-time & proactive exception alerts which benefit the O&M team to ensure they can respond pro-actively to underperformance & / or electrical issues when required.