ES Project
Description of the issue
Technical Challenges:
- The expansive clay soil in and around Regina was recognized as a potential problem for the turbine at the start of the project. A certain tolerance in the Enercon specification for the turbine had to be met on the deflection of the nacelle and tower. The constant heaving of soil due to water absorption and evaporation could cause the turbine foundation to move; hence, affecting the vertical plumb of the tower. Enercon almost always installs their 800 kW turbines on a standard “plate style” shallow foundation with a 15 m diameter and 2.4 m height. However, the geotechnical assessment recommended that Enercon construct the foundation using a standard shallow foundation supported by 28 augered, cast-in-place piles 20 to 25 m (65 to 80 ft) long. This almost doubled the cost of the foundation from the norm.
- A SaskPower requirement was that the turbine and batteries not create an electrical generation island that could be a hazard to electrical workers during a grid outage. Hence, the battery was procured with anti-islanding protection that was extensively tested during commissioning and proved to be capable of shutting down the turbine and battery in less than 2 seconds. If this safety system had not worked acceptably well, it would have shut down the battery part of project until it was resolved, which could have resulted in re-design and cost escalation.
Recommandations
Gaps and Opportunities:
- Although the turbine-battery system has operated very well over the last year, one year of operation is not enough time to establish the reliability and durability of the system. Without this information, many utilities could believe that there is too much technical risk with this new technology to move forward with a larger project. Hence, it would be beneficial to operate the system for at least another four years to obtain five years of data to evaluate availability, turn-around efficiency, and battery life.
- There is a need to continue to assess the economic value of time-shifting and peak dispatch. However, there is also a need to extend the analysis to determine the economic value of smoothening and firming the output, load following, area regulation, and spinning reserve. For load following and area regulation, this could be accomplished by comparing the levelized life-cycle cost of the battery systems to gas turbines working at part load where efficiency can be affected, or regulation with hydro, as required.
- The installation of a 200 kW solar system at the CFN site to investigate the cost-benefit of a solar-wind-battery system would add considerably to the technical knowledge base required to increase the penetration of renewable systems into the grid. In addition to the wind resource, Saskatchewan is one of the best locations in Canada to take advantage of the benefits of solar energy. Given the reduction in the cost of photovoltaic solar arrays, the benefits could be evaluated in terms of increased penetration of the grid by renewable energy systems, and the consequent benefits of reduced air pollution and GHG emissions.
- Incentives are often required to increase the economies of scale to reduce the costs associated with new technology. North American industry is entirely capable of mass producing batteries and deploying them across the continent to reliably increase penetration of renewable energy into the electrical grid while reducing air pollution and GHG emissions. Like wind farms, they can be constructed with little technical, environmental, and financial risk relative to other advanced technologies. Given this, the timeline to construction and operation is short by comparison, as well.
Project Stage
Site, Building and Enclosure
Energy System Component
Storage Technology