Thread: Big storm and no power in SA

Originally Posted by Eevo

who will provide frequency stability?

wind n batt isnt doing it currently. have you already forgotten what caused the sept 2016 blackout already

The wind turbines continued to spin during that blackout, but the software tripped out because of the loss of stability caused by the transmission towers going down, I believe. Now the software has been fixed the situation should be different.
Also, the addition of batteries and a gas station, with the government able to order Pelican Point gas started at any time, should prevent that happening again.
Extra solar and battery systems will further reinforce the network.
It's time to admit that these criticisms of renewables just don't fit with the actual facts.

Originally Posted by DiscoMick

The wind turbines continued to spin during that blackout, but the software tripped out because of the loss of stability caused by the transmission towers going down, I believe. Now the software has been fixed the situation should be different.
Also, the addition of batteries and a gas station, with the government able to order Pelican Point gas started at any time, should prevent that happening again.
Extra solar and battery systems will further reinforce the network.
It's time to admit that these criticisms of renewables just don't fit with the actual facts.

Ah yes, facts. Your facts in this post truth world. You have given us nothing but opinion. None of what you replied with addresses the system stability issue.
Please resubmit your opinion addressing items such as phase rotation, phase frequency and syncronisation.
The truth is, a wind turbine has a generating capacity of around 2MW. How this power is injected to the grid is via a box of electronics. The box of eletronics sets these values by sensing them from the grid i.e. the grid determines how the wind turbine connects to the grid. This box of electronics gives little in the way of system stability.
Thermal machines on one shaft has a generating capacity of hundeds of MW. This power is connected to the grid via bus bars, huge chunks of metal. These machines set the grid to operate at their set of values. If one of these big machines get out of sync, the other big machines pull it into line.
If a 2MW box of electronics gets out of sync, it gets spat off the system. Hopefully without too much damage.

This is not opinion. This is not ideaology. This is physics.

Originally Posted by DiscoMick

The wind turbines continued to spin during that blackout, but the software tripped out because of the loss of stability caused by the transmission towers going down, I believe. Now the software has been fixed the situation should be different.
Also, the addition of batteries and a gas station, with the government able to order Pelican Point gas started at any time, should prevent that happening again.
Extra solar and battery systems will further reinforce the network.
It's time to admit that these criticisms of renewables just don't fit with the actual facts.

your half right and half wrong.

there are two things at play.
1) them helping to maintain the frequency
2) the frequency that they trip at


1) wind farms (being non synchronous) dont do anything to help maintain the frequency
2) the frequency they trip out at has been fixed.


there is nothing that they are adding to the grid that will help frequency control and therefor, nothing to prevent another statewide blackout.

Originally Posted by Eevo

why isnt wind doing it already?

They were neither required to nor allowed to by the operator.

Originally Posted by Eevo

the software setting now allow the wind farm not to trip. they do nothing to prevent the frequency fall.
end result will be the same, statewide blackout.

Software can be changed at any time. Inverters can be reprogrammed to do whatever you want. What was true last year will not necessarily be true this year or the next. As for the exact cause of the next system black you are of course allowed to believe anything you want. Won't make it true however. A unique chain of events is exactly that and any report will reflect that particular chain of events.

Originally Posted by Eevo

aemo dont run the windfarms. windfarm owners/operators asleep at the wheel.

Windfarm operators comply with rules set by the grid operator. If the grid operator knows nothing about what's connected to the grid they shoud be held accountable.

Originally Posted by Mick_Marsh

I was in the states south east near the Lake Bonney wind farms at the time. Fine and sunny at the time of the power outage. There was no storm that night and no power the next day.

I was at home watching the weather radar from early afternoon to around 11pm. Winds north of Adelaide were ferocious during the lead up to the powerlines blowing down and system black. Winds around the Hills didn't build up until the eye of the weather system passed to the east/south east. There was little high wind south of the system, it was predominately west and north of it. What exactly happened after 11pm wasn't visible to me as I was asleep.The power had come back on earlier but went out again during the night from local events.

Originally Posted by bee utey

They were neither required to nor allowed to by the operator.

0/1

Originally Posted by bee utey

Software can be changed at any time. Inverters can be reprogrammed to do whatever you want. What was true last year will not necessarily be true this year or the next. As for the exact cause of the next system black you are of course allowed to believe anything you want. Won't make it true however. A unique chain of events is exactly that and any report will reflect that particular chain of events.

0/2

Originally Posted by bee utey

Windfarm operators comply with rules set by the grid operator. If the grid operator knows nothing about what's connected to the grid they shoud be held accountable.

0/3

the wind farms wernt complying with the rules. nuff said.

3rd party report into the outage:

MHI agrees with AEMO’s explanation of the events that led to the black system.MHI agrees that the event was triggered due to lack of inertia on the SouthAustralian side once the Haywood interconnector tripped.

The system inertia on the SA side was not sufficient to maintain thefrequency drop (once the Haywood interconnector tripped) and to make theunder frequency load shedding (UFLS) effective.

As systems lose inertia due to the retirement/displacement of thermal plants andthe expansion of wind farms, frequency control becomes more important, asfrequency control is directly related to inertia. This report was very wise to notethe relatively low level of inertia during this disturbance. The whole topic offrequency control and RoCoF should be examined on a system-wide basis, and alldevices that protect frequency should be reviewed for their appropriateness.


Based on the high impact of low frequency, low voltage, and growing phase anglethreat due to mixed generations (wind, solar, thermal, etc.) over a wide area of theSA network, it is worth considering the real time WAMS (wide area monitoringsystems) using synchrophasors (Phasor Measurement Units - PMUs). Real timewider area early warning systems can be established with the PMUs to cope with the electrical data, such as phase angle stress, voltage stress, and Var phase angleplot.

last of inertia... wind farms dont provide inertia
frequency control and RoCoF... wind find farms doesnt provide these
installing synchrophasors... more cost to the end user. only required due to wind farms.

what should of happened that night.

during storm conditions, increased risk of faults.
turn off the wind farms. they dont provide inertia and have been shown to be unreliable with riding though.


wind brings down 3 of the 4 towers connecting N-S SA
no loss 400MW
interconnector doesnt peak to 900W and cut out.
SA grid doesn't isolate from VIC

the 1 remaining tower is properly overloaded and northern SA separates from southern SA and northern SA goes black. (not, if northern and playford were in operation, northern SA wouldn't of gone black).
light stay on southern SA and adelaide.



lets change it up a bit.
wind brings down 3 of the 4 towers connecting N-S SA
and 400MW of generations trips due to torrens island getting stuck by lightning.
interconnector peaks at 900MW and trips
SA isolates from VIC.
system has plenty of inertia in it, UFLS kicks in, some load gets shed, probably northern SA.
majority of the lights stay on, no black event.