Aug 20 2010
A research group co-headed by Rajiv Varma, an electrical engineering professor from the University of Western Ontario, has brought in cheers to the wind farms that struggle to operate during windstorm nights.
The new technology will utilize the idle PV solar farms during the night to connect the energy developed by wind farms to the grid, thus offering a cost effective technology to improve the performance of the wind turbine and the stability of the grid voltage.
Most of the wind farms located in Ontario suffer from the problem of maintaining their production during gusty nights due to limitations in the grid capability and frequent voltage flux. The solution of laying new lines was ignored due to its high cost, of about $2 million/ km. The new technology has provided a remedy by integrating idle solar farms with wind farms in the vicinity during the night to save the generated power and offer voltage stability for the wind farms by bolstering output to the grid, at an estimated cost of $100,000.
The new technology is currently being tested by London Hydro and Bluewater Power located in Ontario on two of their existing 10 kW PV solar systems. On the successful completion of the tests, the feature will be extended to other PV systems. While explaining the features of the facility, Rajiv Varma said that the new technology while extending wind energy power production will create extra revenue prospects for PV solar farms for allowing the usage of the farms. He concluded by saying that the technology will make the power supply of Ontario cleaner and greener.