Impacts of grid integration of wind energy in the Namibian power network

Abstract

This paper discusses the general impact of grid integration of wind energy in the Namibian context. The paper focuses on the current electricity situation in Namibia, which presents a demanding task to energy and power engineers in the country to develop ways of rescuing the dire electricity need for Namibia's nation. The efforts made by the country's power utility, NamPower and the government in order to expand the generation capacity will be discussed in this paper. These efforts include the move to build newer conventional power stations and investing in renewable energy alternatives. The latter forms the basis of this paper. Since the fight against global warming has become a worldwide campaign, Namibia is pursuing the development of wind energy. A study case of the grid integration of wind energy on a typical sub-transmission network in Namibia will therefore be covered in this paper. The authors will focus on the relative impact of two wind generator technologies, viz. direct-driven synchronous generator (DDSG) and doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG) technologies. Important aspects to be investigated are the impacts of penetration levels (generation capacity) of the two wind generator technologies and the point of wind plant integration on the host network's voltage stability performance. Since voltage regulation is of critical importance in the operation of a power system, the impact of automatic voltage regulation (AVR) will also be investigated. The findings of this study are of great relevance to the renewable energy development in Namibia as the country is just at burning stages of undertaking to generate wind power to be fed into the existing national grid.