Enabling technologies 03: King Island wind energy innovations
Renewable Energy Commercialisation in Australia, Australian Greenhouse Office, 2003
NOTE: The status of these projects will have changed since the time of publication, and project contacts may also have changed.
The Intelligent Power Systems technology developed by Powercorp will integrate renewables into diesel power systems.
Hydro Tasmania's innovations in energy storage and control system technologies will significantly increase the percentage of usable wind energy by providing system frequency control and reactive power support.
The Tasmanian Hydro-Electric Corporation (Hydro Tasmania) has been investigating various ways of managing and storing wind energy. It will use a grant of $630,000 under the Renewable Energy Commercialisation Program to maximise the replacement of diesel with wind energy in a remote location, while maintaining system stability.
In 1998, Hydro Tasmania installed three 250kW wind turbines to feed into King Island's diesel-generated grid. The turbines have reduced diesel consumption on the island by 20 per cent. Hydro Tasmania is now in the early stages of designing and building a world-class system that will reap the benefit of a far greater proportion of the island's considerable wind resource.
The greatest challenge to maximising the use of wind energy is short-term wind variability. Up until now, the available technology has limited the amount of wind energy that could be fed into an isolated system without increasing the potential of instability in the power frequency and voltage fluctuations. These fluctuations are potentially detrimental to consumer electrical equipment and power station operation.
In addressing these limitations, Hydro Tasmania will use large flow batteries as a short-term energy storage measure. This large-scale flow battery technology is more environmentally friendly than conventional, lead-acid batteries. The battery and inverter system assists in providing system frequency control and reactive power support.
To date, flow batteries have mainly been used to assist with load levelling for substations and in buildings or in small isolated storage systems. Using them as part of King Island's overall power grid will be the first use of the technology in large-scale remote power supply systems and an excellent opportunity to showcase Australian innovative research and development.
The project also incorporates the investigation of demand side management to optimise energy efficiency and reduce system peaks.
The projected savings from the batteries and overall control system amount to 2800MWh per annum. Hydro Tasmania anticipates that, in addition to substantially reducing the island's dependence on diesel, the project will cut greenhouse emissions by a total of 2000 tonnes of CO2 per annum when fully operational.
Hydro Tasmania believes the technology being developed on King Island will have national and international application.
For more information please contact
Andrew Hickman
Senior Project Manager,
New Projects Group
Hydro Tasmania
4 Elizabeth Street
Hobart TAS 7000
Tel (03) 6230 5391
Fax (03) 6224 3323
Email andrew.hickman@hydro.com.au
Internet www.hydro.com.au
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