Australia’s first DC-coupled wind and battery project prepares to power up

Australia’s first “DC-coupled” wind and battery project is preparing to power up in central western Victoria, as part of a one-turbine pilot retrofit at Goldwind’s 312 megawatt Moorabool wind farm.

DC-coupling of large-scale solar and storage projects has become a major trend in Australia, but until now has been confined to solar hybrid projects. It is where a solar PV facility and a big battery share the same connection point, and are viewed by the market operator as one asset.

The DC-coupled solar-battery configuration – first seen a grid-scale at the 128 megawatt (MW) Cunderdin wind farm in Western Australia – also allows the solar power to be fed directly into a battery without needing to convert it to AC power first, improving efficiency and reducing costs.

Goldwind detailed its plans to deliver Australia’s first take on DC-coupled wind and storage about three months ago on LinkedIn, with a video depicting the journey of the 2 MW/4.8 MWh GoldBlock battery energy storage system (BESS) from ChangZhou to the project site at Moorabool.

“We’ve achieved a significant milestone by seamlessly integrating wind turbines with energy storage using our advanced DC coupling technology. This project exemplifies our unwavering commitment to pushing the boundaries of renewable energy solutions,” the post said.

“Our innovative wind and storage DC coupling solution, powered by grid-forming inverters, ensures robust and reliable grid formation, enhancing the stability and efficiency of renewable energy integration.”

In an update on the project’s progress at the 7th Annual Tasmania Energy Conference in Devonport just over a week ago, Goldwind Australia’s general manager of development, Medard Boutry, said the company was “just about to energise” the pilot retrofit to one of Moorabool’s 104 turbines.

“We had to run through a five point… [testing] process to modify the grid connection [and] we’ve got the [agreement letter on performance standards from the Australian Energy Market Operator], and so we’re just in the final phase of getting that up and running,” he said.

“So basically… there are DC-coupled solar farms out there, but we were the first ones to deploy a DC-coupled BESS on a wind farm where there’s a lot of synergies and advantages in it.

“It can be grid-forming to start with, or grid following, depending on how you set it up, what product you select.

“There are a lot of advantages in terms of operating in weak parts of the grid, avoiding system strength charges. Obviously [it allows for] playing in the arbitrage market [and] the FCAS [frequency control ancillary services] market.

“It’s scalable … and it really reduces your … electrical costs, because you’re effectively installing these containerised [BESS] solutions on a path that you’ve already built for the wind farm and … it’s connecting to the DC bus of the wind farm converter. And then you’re basically using the existing infrastructure that’s already there.

“So that’s an exciting bit of technology,” Boutry said.

“It will be really good to see and demonstrate how that’s operating, the benefits that it’s providing. Actually, there may be lots of retrofits on top of our existing product as well.”

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