A research project in Germany has got underway that is seeking to improve the integration of offshore wind farms into the grid.
The Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy Systems’ (IWES) ‘mobile test facility for grid compliance tests research project’, dubbed ‘Mobil-Grid-CoP’, is being launched with the aim of developing and commissioning a mobile grid simulator.
The project will run for three years. Commissioning is planned for fall 2022.
The tool will serve to verify current and future grid system services as well as electrical properties of wind turbines.
The mobile facility will allow the “testing and optimisation of the grid compatibility of very large wind turbines with an output of up to 20MW”, according to Fraunhofer IWES.
The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) is supporting the project with finds of €12.7m.
Test benches are currently available for accelerated testing of the electrical properties of wind turbines, enabling realistic testing under reproducible conditions in a defined time frame.
However, future turbine sizes, especially offshore, with outputs in excess of 15MW, cannot be accommodated by today’s test benches.
In the future, the new mobile grid simulator will be able to simulate various grid connection points and dynamic grid events for this testing prototypes directly in the field.
In addition to grid errors, the mobile test facility to be developed will also allow testing of dynamic frequency changes to analyse the supply of active power from the turbine and examine the effects thereof on the overall system. It will also be possible to simulate future requirements such as blackouts in order to test the grid restoration capacity of power grids.
Fraunhofer IWES technical director Jan Wenske said: “In Mobil-Grid-CoP, Fraunhofer IWES is developing the world’s largest grid simulator with an output of 80 MVA. For one thing, this can be integrated seamlessly into our existing Dynamic Nacelle Testing Laboratory test structure and, for another, it can be used in the open field.
“Furthermore, it will also be able to be connected to the planned hydrogen test field.”
Fraunhofer IWES presented the Mobil-Grid-CoP to an international group of industrial companies.
“We are delighted by the positive feedback and the specific technical requirements of industry which we will integrate into the specifications for the test facility”, said Fraunhofer IWES system technology department head Torben Jersch.