News

May 15, 2019

WEICan Releases PERD Project Summary Report

Wind generation is a continually expanding source of electrical energy generation in Canada, reaching 13,000 MW of installed capacity (2018) which represents approximately 9% [1] of the total installed capacity from all sources. As more electrical energy is generated by wind, it brings with it challenges to maintaining grid stability. Grid and system operators in many parts of the world are yet to explore and exploit wind generation’s full capabilities. This can be attributed to several reasons. Wind generation is a relatively new technology, having been mainstream for roughly 40 years now as opposed to nearly a century of operation for coal and hydro. Wind has historically represented a small section of the overall generation mix and was therefore only required to provide as much power as the wind would allow. Wind generation was not expected (or required, in most cases) to provide any additional services besides simply generating power. Despite this having changed in recent years [2] , performance data on wind turbines’ abilities is often lacking or not public. NRCan’s PERD project is intended to provide empirical evidence for the ancillary services that wind turbines and storage batteries are capable of providing in addition to simply generating power. Examples of ancillary services include voltage support, power-frequency support, low-voltage ride through, primary frequency response and operating reserves among others. A total of four scenarios are developed in consultation with system operators and research partners. Two scenarios involve only wind generators, one involves only a battery storage system and one involves both. This work focuses primarily on a wind turbine’s ability to provide the service of secondary frequency regulation (aka AGC, Automatic Generation Control).