May 20 2008
American Superconductor Corporation , a leading energy technologies company, today announced that it has received orders for its D-VAR® solution for grid interconnection of wind farms located in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. The wind farms will utilize wind power systems from three different global wind turbine manufacturers.
The D-VAR systems, which will provide voltage support for more than 200 megawatts (MW) of aggregated power, will be delivered to all four wind farms within the next 12 months. AMSC now has an installed base and orders for solutions to serve approximately 7,350 MW of wind power worldwide, an increase of more than 120 percent over the past 12 months.
AMSC’s proprietary D-VAR systems enable wind farm developers to meet the national and provincial requirements adopted in many countries for connecting wind farms to power grids. AMSC customers utilize D-VAR grid interconnection solutions to provide voltage regulation and power factor correction, along with post-contingency assistance to prevent voltage collapse on the power grid.
“Our D-VAR solutions are being used around the world to safely connect wind farms to electric power grids,” said Chuck Stankiewicz, executive vice president and general manager of AMSC Power Systems. “These solutions mitigate voltage instabilities at wind farms to enable wind farm owners and operators to meet dramatically varying grid interconnection requirements around the world. This ensures the quality of the power being delivered to customers and in many cases improves the reliability of the local power grid.”
Worldwide wind power capacity increased 27 percent in 2007 to more than 94 gigawatts (GW), according to a Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) report issued in April 2008. The global wind energy market, according to the report, is expected to grow an additional 155 percent to 240 GW of total installed capacity by 2012.
In addition to the D-VAR® grid interconnection solution, AMSC offers a range of proprietary products and services for the growing wind power market. From June 1-4, 2008, the company will host a “Connecting With the Wind” exhibit at the WINDPOWER 2008 Conference & Exhibition organized by the American Wind Energy Association. The event will be held at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, TX. The exhibit, located at booth # 1452, will feature the company’s full suite of solutions for the wind industry ranging from the D-VAR solution to AMSC Windtec™ turbine designs and consulting services and wind turbine electrical components that utilize the company’s proprietary PowerModule™ power converter.
Posted May 20th,2008