Last 15th of November, a technical workshop about the integration of renewable energy in national power systems took place in Barcelona. It was aimed to a Turkish delegation from the Ministry of Industry and Energy of the Turkish government, and it was organized by the Spanish companies Nnergix Energy Forecasting Services and Green Eagle Solutions.
The goal of the workshop was to share experiences regarding the state of art of wind and solar power forecasting, as well as to analyze practical cases of monitoring facilities for this purpose. The workshop also had a practical session which included a visit to Innogy energy control center and energy dispatching center validated by the Spanish Transmission System Operator REE (Red Eléctrica Española), as an example of efficient integration of renewables in the Spanish power system.
Nowadays, Turkey is experiencing a similar situation to the Spanish one around 2006. For the last years, the Turkish wind energy sector has experienced annual growth of around 30%, reaching 7,000 MW of total capacity installed in 2017, that means the 8% of the total capacity installed in Turkey.
Murat Zekeriya Aydin, General Director of Energy at the Ministry of Industry and Energy, said that the current challenge for Turkish government is to figure out how to increase the renewable energies integration into the national grid (managed by TEIAS Turkish Electric Transmission Corporation) whereas the grid stability is not endangered. He also confirmed that the Spanish experience might be an inspiring successful case for this purpose.
In the first session of the workshop, Nnergix Energy Forecasting Services presented several case studies of wind and solar power forecasting in different countries such as Mexico, Macedonia, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua; the power forecasting state of the art was analyzed, and the most innovative forecasting techniques were discussed. The second session was moderated by Green Eagle Solutions and ran about the challenge of monitoring renewable portfolios made of wind and solar technologies from different OEMs.
Given that Turkey is an appreciably multi-technology wind market dominated by five manufacturers: Nordex, Vestas, Enercon, GE, and Siemens Gamesa. The Turkish delegation was very interested in how one single tool can integrate different technologies from different OEMs, as well as standardize and improve data gathering, which is an essential input to build up more accurate forecasting models.
The Turkish delegation took advantage of this workshop to open a discussion about how they could improve their forecasting technology for both wind and solar power. The conclusion was clear, availability of historical and real-time SCADA data, taking into account wind turbines availability as well as the proper combination of different weather forecasting models are essential to achieving more accurate power forecasting system, and as a consequence feasibility to reach higher renewable energy penetration into the national mix without endangering grid stability, and reducing renewables integration costs.
The workshop ended with a visit to Innogy’s Energy Control Center located in Barcelona, which has been working as an energy dispatching center since 2015. There, the Turkish delegation could see how 500 MW of wind, hydro and thermosolar are managed. This Energy Control Center, developed by Green Eagle Solutions using its technology CompactSCADA®, runs monitoring of assets and electrical substations in real time, interacts with O&M field technician operators, and manages substation maintenance works. The Implementation of REE setpoint commands and its participation in the ancillary services market also attracted the attention of the Turkish delegation.
