Company Feature of the Month
Electrotek Concepts, Sister Company of Dranetz-BMI
We normally show or feature one of the Dranetz-BMI
products in this spot, but this month we wanted you to
be aware of our sister company, Electrotek Concepts.
They have been providing expert consulting services and
analysis on power quality and energy management for
many, many years now and no one does it better. Whether
they are consulting, analyzing, measuring, simulating,
monitoring (powermonitoring.com) or solving electrical
power problems, training engineers on how to use Dranetz-BMI
power test instruments, or supplying customers with the
software (PQView, PQWeb, PQSoft, SuperHarm) that makes
the customer's job of analyzing the data they obtain
easier to understand and view, Electrotek does it all.
Facilities, utilities and even renewable energy sources
(like Wind Power which Dave Mueller has co-authored the
article below for this month), all have come to
recognize the impact and importance of using the many
resources that Electrotek has to offer.
If you wish to learn more about them, you can visit
then on their web site,
A Look at Wind Power
Wind Power Plants Meet New Power Quality Issues
Innovative monitoring & test instruments play key
role
Wind power in the United States is a rapidly growing
industry. As of 2008, the U.S. overtook Germany for the
title of the leading producer of electricity from wind
power. And for the third year in a row, the United
States was the fastest growing wind power market in the
world. The Department of Energy has said wind power
could generate 20% of US electricity by 2030.
Wind power plants, once in a state of infancy, are
now growing up to be "adults". They are now required to
be good neighbors to the transmission power grid. Power
quality issues, which could be overlooked when the
industry was smaller, must now be dealt with
proactively. The interconnection agreements between the
wind power plants and the utility grids reflect this
greater maturity of the industry. Wind power plants are
now required to provide a fair share of reactive power.
However, they must provide low voltage ride through, and
of course they must not create disturbances on the power
grid.
New wind power plants are being designed to meet
these new responsibilities, while also providing for
improved operation and efficiency at lower wind speeds.
However, changing technology can usually be counted on
to bring new challenges. Capacitor banks, now being
regularly installed in wind power plants to provide
reactive power, carry the unwanted difficulties of
harmonic resonance concerns. At one site that was
investigated, the capacitor banks failed violently due
to harmonic resonance. Plant collector systems can now
comprise over 250,000 feet of underground cable, and
these systems are susceptible to switching transients
and harmonics resonances. The power system grounding
also has to be carefully designed to avoid over voltages
due to self excitation phenomena that can occur when the
plant becomes isolated from the power grid.
The new problems are not confined to the wind power
plant. Transmission grid operators must deal with power
flow, stability, relaying, and power quality concerns.
It isn't pleasant when an investment of over $100
million is stymied by the refusal of the power grid to
connect the facility. In one case in Europe, the utility
was concerned enough to do just that. The consultant had
to then evaluate the affects of the new underground
transmission feed and make certain that harmonic
resonance on the transmission system would not cause
objectionable harmonic voltage distortion before the
facility could be connected.
Power quality monitoring and other test equipment
provides a necessary role in meeting these challenges.
Often the monitors utilize remote communications (done
by a telephone line, the internet, or even satellite
communications) to provide longer term trend data during
various wind conditions and weather seasons. Handheld
test equipment, with advanced capabilities to capture
micro-second transient conditions, are important tools
used for commissioning and testing. Web based
monitoring, where the data is automatically downloaded
and available for display over the internet, is also an
important tool to coordinate the knowledge and efforts
of the team at various locations.
New wind plant technology is introducing new
electrical power quality issues that can challenge even
the most experienced engineering groups. In these
situations, it is necessary to have the most advanced
monitoring and testing equipment. Site measurement and
testing provides the needed insight for wind plant
developers and owners to understand these new concerns.
The field information is required to correct analytical
models and studies, so that the lessons learned today
will be used for future wind power plant designs. These
efforts create a bright future for the wind power
industry, so that it can be counted on to provide clean,
reliable power.
Tech Tip of the Month
Starting with this month, we decided to feature those
questions that our tech group are asked on a regular
basis and its solution may be of interest to a lot more
of you out there. Hope they help. Here is one from our
Mike Kellom:
Problem: I lost or do not have the Dranview
6.x CD and I either have my Dranview 6.x HASP or I have
a DV5 HASP (you can tell which one you have by what is
stamped on the hasp, if it shows HASP HL it is a DV6 and
if it just has HASP, it is a DV5). DV5 and DV6 programs
and HASPs are NOT interchangeable. If you have a DV5
HASP you must install the DV5 program and if you have
the DV6 HASP you must install the DV6 program.
Solution: Simply go to the ftp site and
download the DV6 CD or DV5 (whichever is appropriate for
you)
This will have you up and running in no time. Good
luck everyone and check here next month for our next
tech tip. For more information on this, go to Dranetz-BMI's
"Contact Page",
http://www.dranetz-bmi.com/contactus.cfm and
click on Technical Support.
PQSynergy 2009: Call for Papers
PQsynergy™ 2009 Asia, is our 9th annual
International Power Quality and energy conservation
conference held in Thailand. Like our past events, it
will be informal and will bring together Asian utility
engineers and managers, large power users and energy
managers to discuss the business of power quality and
the latest technologies for conserving energy while
preserving or improving the quality of electrical power.
PQsynergy™ 2009 organizing committee invites
interested parties to offer non-commercial papers for
presentation consideration at the PQsynergy™ 2009
Conference. Prospective authors/speakers should submit
via email a two to three paragraph abstract (200 words
maximum) on the main points of the paper. Additional or
clarified points may be requested prior to accepting
paper for presentation. Please note, papers submitted
with additional focus on costs, performance and business
aspects of their technology, application, etc., will be
favored. Note: As an informal conference, the author
need only supply the presentation slides for
distribution. There is no requirement for a
formal technical paper.
The PQsynergy™ 2009 attracts an audience of
utility engineers, large power users and independent
consultants dedicated to keeping power systems and
individual facilities operating at optimal levels.
Attendees of the conference will include facility
managers, plant engineers, electrical contractors,
design engineers and utility engineers and managers
responsible for ensuring power system reliability and
energy management.
Interested persons should email contact information
(author's name, title, affiliation if any, address,
phone and E-mail), paper title, abstract (maximum 200
words), biography(50 words), track (contact Terry
Chandler for listing of topics). If there is more than
one author, please indicate other author name(s) and
affiliation at end of the abstract.
For more information, please email Mr. Terry
Chandler TerryC@powerquality.org or
info@powerquality.org or info@powerquality.co.th
or visit the conference website
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