(Source: Business Wire)
American Superconductor Corporation (NASDAQ: AMSC), a global energy
technologies company, today announced that its D-VAR grid
interconnection solution has been ordered for two additional wind farms
under construction in Australia. These are the 50th and 51st
wind farms to have purchased AMSC's D-VAR systems worldwide and AMSC's 6th
and 7th wins in Australia.
Both of the D-VAR solutions included in these new contracts will be
deployed to enable wind farms to meet local grid interconnection
requirements. AMSC will provide a D-VAR system to Suzlon Energy
Australia Pty. Ltd., a subsidiary of India's Suzlon Energy
Limited, for the 132 megawatt (MW) AGL Hallett 4 (North Brown Hill) Wind
Farm being erected outside of Jamestown, South Australia. AMSC also will
provide a D-VAR system to Consolidated Power Projects Australia Pty Ltd.
for Roaring 40s Renewable Energy Pty Ltd.'s 111 MW Waterloo Wind Farm
currently under construction approximately 100 kilometers north of
Adelaide in South Australia. Both D-VAR systems will be delivered within
the next six months.
Customers can utilize AMSC's D-VAR
solutions to provide voltage regulation, power factor correction and
post-contingency assistance to help prevent voltage collapse on the
power grid to which the wind farms are connected. These solutions enable
wind farm developers to meet grid interconnection requirements adopted
in countries such as Australia.
"In order to help facilitate the integration of electricity generated
from renewable sources of energy, Australia is requiring that the
reactive compensation of wind power plants be similar to that of
traditional generation plants," said Timothy Poor, Senior Vice President
of Global Sales and Business Development at AMSC. "As a result, we are
seeing a growing pipeline of opportunities for our best-in-class D-VAR
solution. With Australia recently setting a target to derive 20 percent
of its electricity needs from renewable sources by 2020, we believe this
will be a sizable market for AMSC for many years to come."
AMSC's D-VAR solutions will now be supporting more than 700 MW of wind
power in Australia. The country currently has a total installed capacity
of 1.9 gigawatts (GW) of wind power according to market research firm Emerging
Energy Research (EER). The Australian government recently announced
support of a law requiring that 20 percent of Australia's electricity be
derived from renewable sources such as solar and wind by 2020 - more
than twice the country's current level.
