Mixing Wind Turbine in Wind Farms

[king2187]

Hello there,

Is there any problems to have different manufacturers (etc Vestas combined with GE wind turbines) of wind turbine in a same wind farms ? Will this effect much of the power generation ? Hope someone will be kind enough to clarify this. Thanks alot in advanced.

 

[rbulsara]

From technical point of view I don't think so, as long as each one of them is independently connected to the grid. A wind turbine does not know what is feeding the grid to which it is connected to anyway.

From maintenance and service point of view, having the same manufacturer makes more sense. It also builds a relationship one vendor which goes a long way resolving issues.

I do not pretend to be a wind turbine expert, just expressing views based on what I know.

 

[king2187]

Thanks for the reply. But i thought some of the wind turbines have different types of generators which may affect the grid if the wind farm have different type of wind turbine. Moreover, i thought all the wind turbines in the wind farms are connected to the 'power house' before supply the electric to the grid. Hopefully you can help me to clarify if i am thinking correctly in this way. Thanks alot.

 

[rbulsara]

If you are talking about a wind farm and where multiple wind turbine generators (WTG)of mixed manufactures are "paralleled" (as it appears on a one-line, there is no true paralleling of induction machines with each other), before connecting to a grid, there could be issues. They may have to do with protections, controls and data gathering issues.

It is no different than mixing two regular synchronous gens of different manufactuers, which is technically doable but could pose problems because of some controls issues.
In theory, any two induction machines should be able to connect to a common grid. I am assuming these are induction machines.

I would even say, as long as each collector bus in a wind farm has machines of the same manufacturer it should work, even if other collector bus has different make of machines.

Again, this is just my opinion based on what I have leaned of WTGs, by reading literature. I am no expert in WTG but electrically they are simple machines. In fact I would be involved with my first WTG interconnection project soon- 2-2MW units.

From a businessman and/or a professional point of view, I would try to stay away from troubles and not be too enthusiastic about mixing two different mfrs on a project. Besides potential technical issues, it is just a bad business and PR issue.

 

[king2187]

Thanks for the info and advise rbulsara...And have a good day ahead.

 

[waross]

The output wave form of a generator approximates a sine wave. It is not exact and not the same wave form for different designs. This may lead to small reactive circulating currents. However if the wave forms are not identical with each other then at least one of them will be not equal to the grid wave form.
In practice, there is not enough difference to be a problem.

Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

 

[ScottyUK]

Of course one turbine design may be using a double-feed induction machine and the other using grid tie inverters in which case the technologies are quite different. Not sure if there would be any detrimental interaction - a question to ask to both manufacturers I suspect.


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If we learn from our mistakes I'm getting a great education!

 

[FreddyNurk]

I'm fairly sure that theres an installation in Australia that has both Vestas and Enercon turbines within the one wind farm, which would tend to suggest that its feasible.

I agree with Scotty though, they are likely (particularly the brands suggested) to be different technologies, and as such may behave differently under certain conditions. This may include minimum wind speed to produce power, speed of reaction (i.e. shutdown or feathering of blades) when a wind overspeed event occurs, and ability to regulate the output of the turbine in wind conditions.

Its obviously impossible to predict what issues may arise without knowing what the technologies involved are, and this just adds to the benefit of sticking to one manufacturer. Are multiples being considered due to the lead time for turbines?

 

[king2187]

I was thinking using difference manufacturer with the same capacity rating wind turbines (GE and Vestas 2.0MW turbine) so that installation for the wind farm will progress or complete in a quicker pace. But of course difference manufacturer have different distinctive advantages but everything should be normalise in the 'power station' where transformer and inverters should standardize everything up before providing power to the grids. Is this statement true ?

 

[edison123]

I have seen within a wind farm vestas, micon wind turbines running ABB/Elin/Enercon generators, all running in parallel with the same grid. While ABB and Elin were induction machines, Enercon was a huge synchronous machine.

No problems. If you have any doubts about a particular machine, you should talk to the OEM. As a supplier, they would have studied your farm and would be able to answer your questions.