The forum often hosts threads on renewable energy which often contain extremes of hyperbole regarding the desirability and simplicity of converting existing electricity networks to fully “renewables” generated.
The information contained in this post was extracted from a book called Black Out written by Mathew Warren. It's a good read and well explains how
Australia got itself into the ongoing energy generation and distribution mess it finds itself in.
Australia is not a bad place to carry out trials of the implementation of renewables experiments it has a wide variety of
weather conditions and thousands of “islanded” networks from which to choose candidates.
King Island in Bass Strait has a population of about 1,600 people and a small cheese making industry and being isolated from the rest of Australia in a very windy place was considered a good candidate for a renewables
experiment and in consequence the King Island Renewable Island Integration
Project was instituted by Hydro Tasmania.
Hydro Tasmania originally ran four
diesel generators to supply
electrical power to the island. In 1998 three small
wind turbines were installed. The
power produced was fed into the
network via a
regulator which responded to increases in power generated by throttling back the diese; generators. The savings in
diesel fuel inspired Tassy Hydro to investigate further with an ambition to entirely power the island with
wind generated AC power.
To increase the amount of wind power two more larger wind turbines were installed and a vanadium flow
battery were installed in 2003. The
battery was not included for bulk
storage but for power fluctuation remediation purposes.
The battery failed fairly rapidly and a system of shunts installed to soak up extra power when the
network could not absorb it. This is a wasteful process in that the diesels must generate a substantial portion of the power requirements to compensate for lulls and power dumped to ground during the gusts.
To increase the usable portion of power from “renewables” the battery was replaced with a more reliable lead acid type, and motor/generator flywheels were added. This combination of technologies then allowed the diesel generators to be turned off and the system has actually managed to run for two days entirely on “renewables”.
The King Island wind power
experiment was successful because the
project was placed in the hands of the engineers who, as they are inclined to do, responded rationally to the challenges thrown up during the experiment and consequently evolved a suitable design for the locally prevailing meteorological conditions.
The engineers appear to have
solved all the problems related to the transfotmation of this small network and you can watch the King Island experiment at
work using an Android app on your
phone which can be downloaded from the KIREIP web site.