Ride Thru disturbances

News

Iberdrola Renovables, the world’s largest operator of wind farms, has chosen GE Energy grid integration technology to upgrade its GE 1.5MW turbines at wind farms in Spain.

Iberdrola Renovables

, the world’s largest operator of wind farms, has selected

GE Energy

grid integration technology to upgrade its GE 1.5MW turbines at wind farms in the Castilla La Mancha, Murcia and Rioja regions of

Spain

.

GE Energy will equip 290 GE 1.5MW wind turbines in the three regions with new GE frequency converters incorporating the company’s proprietary Low Voltage Ride Thru (LVRT) technology, which allows uninterrupted wind turbine operation through many types of grid disturbances.

The project with Valencia-based Iberdrola Renovables will mark GE’s first LVRT upgrade of wind turbines in Europe. GE’s Spanish field operations team will carry out the installations.

Previously, wind turbines were designed to trip offline in the event of major system disturbances and this loss of generation impacted grid system stability and could lead to cascaded tripping. Now, grid operators are requesting that wind farms ride through grid disturbances, remaining online to continue supporting the grid.

GE claims its LVRT technology is designed to deliver ride-through capability for up to 15 per cent grid voltage for at least 500 milliseconds.