Contact person
Anders Wickström
Senior Projektledare
Contact AndersHybrid parks, the future of wind power and electricity grid challenges
Sweden is facing major challenges. More renewable electricity production is needed. Wind power needs to contribute more to supporting the electricity grid. External threats place higher demands on resilience. RISE wants to solve these challenges through the WISP project “Wind power for Increased grid Service capacity and balanced Production”.
Background
Hydropower has historically been used to maintain Sweden's grid stability. Hydropower currently accounts for 40% of electricity production and 87% of support services. The corresponding figures for wind power are 25% of electricity production but only 3% of support services. This is not a sustainable situation in the long term. Furthermore, hydropower's ability to regulate grid frequency is quite slow (on the order of seconds), as it relies on mechanical systems that adjust turbines’ flow intake.
As renewable electricity production increases, the share of synchronously coupled rotational energy in the system is expected to decrease. To ensure a robust and resilient electricity system with an increasing share of renewable electricity production, the grid frequency needs to be regulated more quickly. Therefore, a new service, Dynamic FFR, is needed. Wind power and batteries can contribute to this.
In several previous projects, RISE has analysed the technical and economic feasibility of wind power to support services. So far, the tests have been carried out on a 40-kW research turbine owned by Chalmers.
Briefly about the WISP project and its objectives
The project will create a commercial-scale hybrid park based on existing wind turbines supplemented with a battery system.
One goal is to develop and demonstrate a solution for how wind power, in a hybrid park, can control and balance the grid frequency by providing fast support services (DFFR and POD).
Thanks to the power electronics these systems are equipped with and new control interfaces, the project will demonstrate that the grid frequency can be regulated and balanced significantly faster than hydropower is capable of.
Another goal is to analyse the technical and economic consequences for wind farms, batteries and power electronics that provide frequency support, from both the resource owner and the system operator's perspective.
The overall aim is to adapt the operating mode of all wind turbines and energy parks so that they produce the production bids that are set in advance (neither more nor less) while having the extra ability to contribute with both short- and long-term support services. This creates opportunities for wind farm owners to adapt operating modes that maximize their revenues, which are then generated through a combination of electricity production and the support service that in each operating quarter gives the best return and/or system support.
Project financing
The project will submit an application to the Swedish Energy Agency's call for proposals "Future fossil-free electricity production for a resilient and robust electricity supply" which closes on April 28. A draft application is already available and several partners have contacted us and want to participate. More partners are welcome!
Participation does not cost money but requires a certain amount of your own work, a so-called in-kind contribution.
RISE's ambition is to create a strong consortium, which increases the possibilities for granted support.
The project's budget is approximately SEK 20 million.
Project implementation
The project will develop, test and provide software for wind turbines and energy parks in an open source environment, software that limits power appropriately and contributes to the capacity of various support services, with a particular focus on DFFR and POD.
A crucial variable is “Available power”. The project will continue and deepen previous analyses on how it can be calculated. Through transparency with algorithms, it is calculated what uncertainties and errors may exist, depending on the weather situation and the degree of power limitation.
Evaluations are first carried out in existing aeroelastic simulation environments, where wind conditions, various network errors and other conditions can be set arbitrarily. The impact and lifespan of the units linked to changing loads are also calculated there. It is an important aspect from the turbine owners' perspective and interest to participate in the support service market.
The software will then be executed in a commercial-sized hybrid park. The project rents an existing wind farm on Öland (initially: 5 x 2 MW) and rents a battery system of 4 MWh. Additional production and consumption may be added.
The project's logic and flows for integrating up to 100 percent renewable electricity production into the electricity system are shown in the image below.
In the long term, the plan is that the hybrid park can also be disconnected from the grid to demonstrate how the park can maintain grid frequency when various disturbances are introduced. This opens up a resilience perspective where the hybrid park can start in island operation.
The work will be carried out in close collaboration with the project partners, who will provide input and guidance from their respective perspectives.
Regular project meetings and workshops will be held with all project partners and other stakeholders to improve the overall understanding of how wind power, potential batteries and power electronics can increase revenues from support services and reduce risks related to wind forecast errors.
In summary, the WISP project needs to be implemented to:
- Meet the government's demand for wind power's share of support services to the electricity grid to increase.
- Ensure frequency stability, with a smaller share of synchronously coupled rotational inertia, by introducing a new rapid remedial measure, DFFR, and developing techniques for POD.
- Address the industry's dilemma of how a hybrid park can and should be controlled in an optimal way to maximize revenues and lifespan of the facility and also avoid or minimize imbalance costs.
- Ensure that "Available power" is calculated correctly, which links to the compensation paid by SVK.
For more information, please contact:
Network facts
Name
WISP
Funders
RISE creates the network of partners for EM's call "Fossil-free electricity pro…
Membership
RISE welcomes companies across the entire value chain as partners in the project. This includes project developers, turbine owners, operators, manufacturers, electricity traders and grid owners.
Welcome!
Explanations and abbreviations:
A hybrid park is an energy production facility that combines multiple power types and/or storage options. This project initially refers to wind power in combination with batteries.
Dynamic FFR (DFFR) is a support service that works much like FCR-N, i.e. regulates power output up or down depending on the grid frequency. The difference is that DFFR does this on a significantly faster time scale (in the order of milliseconds). DFFR is not yet available in the Nordic countries but in some other electricity markets, such as the UK.
Power Oscillation Damping (POD) is a function to avoid unwanted oscillations in the power grid.
Available power is the theoretical extra power reserve that the wind turbine or wind farm has available in power-limited operation.
Further information:
See below link to the previous WISP application, prepared for the CETP 2025 call. It shows further information including Specific Objectives and Key Performance Indicators.
Due to portal issues, this application could not be submitted.
WISP CETP Application (pdf, 1.12 MB)
