AEP Expert Independent Review of Hybrid Power Supply System
AEP Elical was chosen to provide an expert independent review into the Power Station Control System at a mine site which utilised cutting-edge renewable technology. The hybrid power supply system to the mine was one of the largest integrated, off-grid, solar and battery storage facilities in the world.
The review was led by AEP Elical Power Generation Systems Specialists, Matthew Vanderburg and John Gould. It was undertaken to investigate an outage that occurred at the site and to assess the rectification works required. Further, actions were recommended to reduce the risk of a repeated incident. In conjunction with this, a specialist statement regarding the system performance and implementation was developed.
The review required detailed investigation in to how the system required performance was specified and then how it was designed and implemented to achieve the required performance. The review required in-depth knowledge of the control systems utilised for the purpose and how the system interacted to manage the various hybrid components of the system.
AEP Elical controlled and supervised the SCADA systems development for a solar farm installed to connect into a weak rural distribution system. In addition, we were asked to provide advice on how to manage the system to keep the output within the performance parameters of the distribution authority.