Wind, solar and other renewable sources are desperately needed to meet climate goals. More and more companies want to contribute to sustainability and generate and feed energy themselves. However, the demand for capacity on the power grid continues to rise and, at the same time, the power grid is becoming congested in more and more places. Waiting lists for grid reinforcement are growing, which can cripple the continuity and expansion of your projects.
Grid congestion is best described as congestion on the power grid. At peak times, the demand for power or the supply when feeding back generated renewable energy is greater than the grid operator's physical cables and transformers can handle.
For you as a Technical Manager or Installation Manager, this has direct consequences. As a result, grid operators are increasingly refusing new connections or the reinforcement of existing contracts to companies. You cannot solve the congestion on the public grid yourself, but you can optimise efficiency within your own installation.
The automatic reflex when there is a power shortage is often to immediately invest in costly battery systems. However, waiting for a grid connection takes too long and batteries are not always the most efficient first step. A structural alternative is much closer at hand: 'breaking in' within your own electrical installation. Indeed, measurements in industry, hospitals and data centres, among others, show that hardly any installation makes 100% efficient use of its contracted capacity.
Your grid operator's bill and hard limit are based on apparent power (kVA) or amperes. This is the sum of the useful, active power (kW) actually running your machines, and the 'lost' power (kVAR) created by reactive current and harmonic contamination.
When the Power Quality (the quality of voltage and current) of your installation is not optimal, you fill your cabling and transformers with this unusable power. As a result, you reach the grid operator's contract limit, when in reality you could still be running significantly more machines. This inhibits your operations unnecessarily and causes higher grid costs.
When internal power quality is restored, the unnecessary, 'idle' load on your cables and transformers immediately decreases. In practice, this process of cleaning up often results in significant capacity gains within the existing infrastructure. You achieve this efficiency gain through three fundamental interventions:
System solutions that store electrical energy for later use decongest the power grid and provide greater flexibility. Yet placing a battery in an internally contaminated installation is risky. Power electronics in an environment with harmonics or voltage dips can lead to resonance, accelerated wear and inefficiency. By optimising Power Quality first, you avoid these problems and it turns out that a battery can often be much smaller (or even completely redundant).
In practice, optimising Power Quality is often accompanied by a significant reduction in structural energy losses. The capacity this frees up gives you room to expand or realise desired sustainability initiatives without having to wait for the grid operator. At the same time, you can further prepare for local power storage and consumption optimisation.
This ensures you have a robust and efficient installation. After all, no one should have to worry about the reliability and safety of electricity.
Want to dive deeper into the subject matter?
Want to know exactly how to understand and exploit this hidden capacity yourself? Then follow our Power Topic: Create extra capacity: Power Quality as an answer to grid congestion. In it, our engineers share practical analysis and real-life examples.
Waiting for grid reinforcement costs you valuable time. Here's a clear look at the situation around your grid capacity: the space you are looking for is often already there. Let us explore how we can optimise Power Quality for you, so that you can move forward with your expansion or sustainability plans straight away.
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