AMSC Receives PowerModule™ Order for VRB Power Systems Wind Energy Storage Device
American Superconductor Corp. (AMSC) announced continued growth in orders for its power electronics solutions for the global wind power market. The company’s PowerModule™ power converter technology has been selected to manage power for a unique wind energy storage system – a new product that is expected to increase the uniformity of electricity from wind farms. AMSC also reported another new order for its D-VAR® reactive compensation product – in this latest case to enable connection of a wind farm in Scotland to the local power grid.
AMSC’s PowerModule power electronic converters have been ordered by VRB Power Systems, Inc. of Vancouver, British Columbia and will be integrated into their energy storage systems. This energy storage technology, developed by VRB Power, has the ability to store excess wind-generated energy when the demand is low, and release it when the demand exceeds the available wind generated power. The storage system has the potential to increase the supply reliability of wind energy and reduce the cost of the reserve requirements from generation plants.
"AMSC’s wind energy solutions are the products of choice for today’s wind farm developers and contractors seeking to develop and deploy world class, wind-generation systems," said Greg Yurek, founder and CEO of AMSC. "The D-VAR has become the standard for wind farm operators facing strict grid interconnection standards while the PowerModule’s flexibility and configurability makes it ideally suited for many industries and applications such as the renewable energy market."
AMSC also reported an order for a six megaVAR (MVAR) D-VAR system from Scottish Southern Hydro Contracting for the Millennium wind farm, which is under construction in Scotland. This system will help regulate voltage so the 40MW wind farm can meet the United Kingdom’s grid interconnection standards. The Millennium wind farm will be the ninth wind farm located in the United Kingdom and the 26th wind farm worldwide to utilize AMSC’s D-VAR solution. Delivery of the system is expected in the second half of calendar 2007.
With the addition of the Scottish wind farm and the VRB order, AMSC now has an installed base and orders for D-VAR and PowerModule solutions to serve nearly 3,000MW of wind power worldwide – triple the amount served by AMSC 12 months ago. With approximately 15,000MW of wind power capacity installed worldwide in 2006, the additional 2,000MW served by AMSC over the past year represents a significant share of the overall wind power market.
