A World First For Liverpool
This article on The Engineer is entitled ABB Grid Balancing Facility Comes Online.
This is the sub-heading.
A significant new project to provide vital inertia across the UK’s electricity grid has gone live at the Lister Drive Greener Grid Park in Liverpool.
This Google Map, shows the Lister Drive Greener Grid Park.
Note.
- The red arrow indicates the location of the pair of synchronous condensers.
- The metal forest to the West of the Statkraft site, looks like a large substation.
These are the first two paragraphs.
Featuring two ABB synchronous condensers, the facility is designed to replicate the inertia currently provided by spinning turbines at coal and gas-fired plants. This inertia is essential for maintaining the correct frequency and voltage across electricity grids, so an alternative source must be installed as thermal generation is replaced by wind and solar, which provide no inertia.
Developed for Norwegian renewable energy firm Statkraft, Lister Drive is the first project anywhere in the world to feature a high-inertia configuration that couples a synchronous condenser with a 40-tonne flywheel. According to ABB, this approach increases the instantaneously available inertia by 3.5 times, ensuring the network frequency and voltage are held stable within the tight limits essential to maintain grid reliability.
In my Electrical Engineering degree course at Liverpool University, I opted out of power engineering, as I preferred Electronics and Control Engineering. So I am indebted to this Wikipedia entry for what a synchronous condenser is and does.
Statkraft seem to be developing several of their Greener Grid Parks, in various places in the UK.
The Anonymous Widower 
My lecturer talked me out of electronics and into power by convincing me that as nobody was taking power there would be a shortage of power engineers. Unfortunately Thatchers privatisation agenda hadn’t really taken off and when it did engineers were readily sacrificed.
Comment by Nicholas Lewis | February 21, 2024 |
Well perhaps it’s a bit hyperbolic to make the claim that its a first but it does incorporate two synchronous condensers.
Moneypoint on the Shannon Estuary couples a synchronous condenser with, what Siemens claim is, the world’s largest flywheel.
https://www.siemens-energy.com/global/en/home/stories/irelands-great-grid-stabilizer.html.
I’d like to see more of these devices given the amount of variable renewable power being generated.
Comment by fammorris | February 21, 2024 |
Statkraft have just got planning permission for a Greener Grid Park in Necton in Norfolk https://renews.biz/93048/statkrafts-uk-grid-stabilising-project-clears-planning/ Should be in operation end next year.
Comment by Peter Robins | May 8, 2024 |