Smart management of turbines
Switching to managing the output of wind farms to make them more efficient, there is a team of researchers at Birmingham University Enterprise so successful that they have filed for a patent to protect their intellectual property.
Their system developed to control the storage and release of energy from wind turbines will apparently reduce the risk of power cuts and support the increase of wind energy use worldwide.
The digital system uses the variable speed of the rotors in wind turbine systems to more closely regulate the supply of power to the grid.
This means that when electricity demand is high, stored kinetic energy in the turbines can be used intelligently to keep the grid stable.
The team has already validated their approach in an industry-standard power grid simulator and is seeking industrial partners to explore commercial opportunities for the technology.
Regulating the supply of electricity to keep pace with demand is a continual challenge.
Sudden outages of power generation, such as when a generator gets damaged, can cause a frequency dip, which can lead to power cuts.
In the UK, large power stations currently manage these dips by pushing out more electricity.
However, as more wind turbines are integrated into the system, it becomes more difficult to balance supply and demand and keep the system stable, as frequency dips in the national power grid occur more quickly and more severely than before when wind generation became such a significant element of electricity generation.
Lead project researcher and smart grid director, Professor Xiao-Ping Zhang, is keenly aware that the clock is ticking.
“By 2030 wind is expected to provide half the UK’s power, so it’s important that we can use the wind farms to provide a vital safety mechanism of controlling frequency dips of the UK’s national power grid,” Zhang said.
“Our proposed frequency control system for wind turbines could revolutionise the UK power grid’s frequency control and, importantly, uses our existing infrastructure of wind turbines and it will not need additional devices and investments.
“Current methods of using wind turbines to regulate electricity struggle to provide consistent support because of variable wind speeds and other system conditions.”
The most recent severe UK power cut, in August 2019, was triggered by two almost simultaneous unexpected power losses at Hornsea and Little Barford due to lightning strikes.
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