AMSC boosts its Australian presence

22 October 2009


Developers of two wind farm projects under construction in Australia have placed orders for American Superconductor’s D-VAR grid interconnection solution, bolstering the US firm’s position in the country’s renewable energy equipment market.

The two orders – from Suzlon Energy Australia and Consolidated Power Projects Australia – represent the sixth and seventh win for American Superconductor’s D-VAR technology in Australia. They will enable the wind farms to meet local grid interconnection requirements.

“In order to help facilitate the integration of electricity generated from renewable sources of energy, Australia is requiring that the reactive compensation of wind power plants be similar to that of traditional generation plants,” said Timothy Poor, senior vice president of Global Sales and Business Development at AMSC. “As a result, we are seeing a growing pipeline of opportunities for our best-in-class D-VAR solution.

Suzlon is building the 132 MW AGL Hallett 4 (North Brown Hill) wind farm near Jamestown, South Australia, while the D-VAR system for Consolidated Power Projects is for Roaring 40s Renewable Energy’s 111 MW Waterloo wind project north of Adelaide, South Australia. Both D-VAR systems will be delivered within the next six months.

The D-VAR system provides voltage regulation, power factor correction and post-contingency assistance to help prevent voltage collapse on the power grid to which wind farms are connected. Australia currently has an installed wind power capacity of 1.9 GW, and is planning to more than double the current levels of renewable energy.

“With Australia recently setting a target to derive 20 per cent of its electricity needs from renewable sources by 2020, we believe this will be a sizeable market for AMSC for many years to come,” said Poor.




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