Source: Energy Storage Alliance
Opportunity
Lanai Sustainability Research constructed the 1.2 MW La Ola PV solar farm to operate on Lanai’s 4 MW grid with the objective to provide clean power to the island’s residents and resorts. upon installation, however, the solar farm represented 30% of the island’s peak generation. The results of an interconnection study analyzing the solar farm’s impact on grid operations determined that the La Ola facility had to maintain an unachievable ramp rate of ± 360 kW per minute and a power factor of ±0.95 in order for its installation to avoid impacting grid reliability. Even more difficult was that the LSR’s PPA required its installation to provide frequency response – a service not achievable by the La Ola solar farm on its own. Without a viable solution to meet these operational requirements, LSR was forced to curtail the La Ola farm to 600 kW (50% of its nameplate capacity) in order to maintain compliance with the local utility. With its project’s revenue severely limited, LSR began looking for a viable, grid scale solution. Otherwise, it would never be able to unlock the full capacity of its solar farm and maximize the project’s revenues.
Approach
After a thorough search, LSR selected Xtreme Power to design a 1.125 MW, 15 minutes duration DPR to provide Ramp Rate Control, Frequency Response, and Power Quality Management. The Xtreme Power DPR has the ability to automatically switch between modes of operation to seamlessly provide the customer’s most critical need depending on grid conditions. These seamless, multifunctional controls are enabled by Xtreme Power’s proprietary Xtreme Active Control Technology (XACT), which takes direct grid measurements, identifies priority of application based on predefined customized protocols, and calculates the required response at a rate of 100 times per second. this allows the DPR to respond intelligently and accurately to the exact needs of the customer or grid well within 50 milliseconds, or 5 times faster than the blink of an eye.
Results
After integrating the DPR, the local utility felt confident to unlock the solar farm’s true potential energy generation after proving that 1200 kW of solar PV on the island grid can be not only a clean, abundant source of fuel for the island, but also beneficial to grid reliability thanks to the DPR’s frequency response performance. The DPR enables the La Ola to provide the largest percentage of renewable penetration from solar into an independent island grid in the world reliably and effectively. For more information, visit www.younicos.com.