Musselroe Wind Farm FCAS Trial

Summary

How the project works

This Musselroe Wind Farm FCAS Trial project will enhance the understanding of the technical specifications and envelope for the individual plant components of wind farms, exploring options within these parameters to achieve an Ancillary Services capability.

Wind farms have not been traditional providers of regulation and contingency FCAS services in the NEM. Once the technical feasibility has been assessed the project will move to investigating economic and commercial viability.

The storage assessment component will look to further improve the connection strength and enhance the plant capabilities of wind farms.

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Benefit

With the level of intermittent generating capacity entering the NEM increasing, together with the retirement of synchronous coal-fired capacity in recent years, network security and reliability has become a strong market focus. Through this project, new and existing wind farm projects will be able to assess the merits of incorporating FCAS market capability, with the ultimate aim to provide greater network support.

By building confidence in inverter based asynchronous technology, the project aims to demonstrate the improved connection opportunities for wind farms and the development of complementary revenue streams.

Area of innovation

This project is developing further understanding in technical FCAS provision for variable generation, including dynamic optimisation assessments which will be required in power systems in the future where intermittent generation is significant. Similarly, the application of specialist assessments across the entire business value stream of the wind farm for storage scenarios and solutions will enhance the understanding of future hybrid solutions to maximise the value of intermittent generation.