American Superconductor Corp. has received a turnkey order for the company’s D-VAR STATCOM reactive compensation solution from Ergon Energy Corporation Limited, an electricity distribution company serving Queensland, Australia. AMSC will install the D-VAR STATCOM system in Ergon’s St. George Substation to provide improvements in the quality of power for customers in the region.
Intelligent grid solutions are used to fortify power networks to enable them to become more resilient and efficient, which are requirements for the effective widespread application of new technologies such as advanced metering infrastructure and plug-in electric vehicles. D-VAR STATCOM systems constantly monitor the power grid and automatically and instantly stabilize voltage to enable higher power transfer through existing power lines with increased reliability and efficiency. D-VAR solutions are also used to reliably interconnect sources of renewable energy to power grids, and are already connecting more than one-third of Australia’s wind-generated electricity to the grid.
“Our D-VAR STATCOM solution automatically and instantly injects precise amounts of reactive power into the grid to stabilize voltage, thereby relieving power grid congestion, improving efficiency and safely interconnecting utility-scale renewable energy plants to the grid. We expect demand for this proprietary solution to continue to grow robustly in Australia and around the world,” said AMSC President and Chief Operating Officer Dan McGahn.
The D-VAR solution provided to Ergon Energy will have a continuous rating of 20 MVAR capacitive and 5 MVAR inductive compensation. AMSC will provide a full turnkey D-VAR solution, including installation and ongoing maintenance and support for Ergon.The contract calls for commissioning of this Intelligent Grid solution early in calendar year 2012.
D-VAR dynamic reactive compensation systems are classified as Static Compensators, or "STATCOMs," a member of the FACTS (Flexible AC-Transmission System) family of power electronic solutions for alternating current power grids.
