Independant Power Producer (IPP) Support
AEC’s experience in both the Process and Energy sectors has given us a unique insight into the modern day hybrid energy facility. With 160MW of Solar projects and 2000 Process projects throughout Africa we fully understand the unique challenges of projects on the African continent.
Constantly striving to be abreast on the latest technology and client specific constraints, AEC is the perfect technical support partner to the Independent Power Producer (IPP).
Feasibilities
Central to AEC’s approach is our energy model which incorporates all factors involved in the setup and execution of an energy project. By tailoring our energy model to your project,
AEC is able to efficiently deliver:
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Site and Solar Resource Assessments
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Energy Yield Models
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Project Finance Models
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Project Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Plans
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Facilitate Utility “sell build” and “budget quotes”
Design & Construction Support
Having a specialist and experienced partner is a strategic must for the IPP. By providing a combination of consulting, engineering design, quality, project management and construction services, AEC has the ability to provide support through the full value chain to the IPP on its Energy facilities.
The engineering design team delivers following
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Qualify and confirm designs
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Ensure Grid Compliancy is attained
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Smart equipment sourcing & procurement
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·Site & Quality management
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Energy performance tests
Plant Energy Efficiencies – Solving site problems
Plant inefficiencies consistently accumulate over years, ultimately resulting in plant chaos. With the current shortage of on-site and even country specific specialist technical skills, our clients find themselves with daily energy production problems leading to long term plant inefficiencies. AEC has vast experience in both analysing and fixing these issues.
AEC offers the following
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Energy yield model expectancy vs site actuality
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On-site investigate and optimization
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Specialist problems we can address:
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Equipment communication failures
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Transformer overheating or failures
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Reactive power integration
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Inverter curtailment issues
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Earthing and lightning protection
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SCADA optimized KPI’s
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Short and Long term site optimization contracts
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O&M efficiency audits
Some Examples
Below is a number of applications to show AEC abaility to deliver complex projects in remote and rural areas.
Transformer Overheating Ventilation Issues
AEC was requested by an IPP to investigate the overheating and subsequent failure of dry-type transformers in its facility. The Inverter cabin design was done on a European standard that if considered from a logical perspective it seems to have more than adequate ventilation.
After AEC’s initial investigation it was clear the ventilation was simply “to much”. AEC engineers redesigned the clients ventilation with minimum impact to the mechanical structures. In adapting the ventilation, the transformer heat rise fell to below 99 degrees even at ambient temperatures exceeding 45 degrees without the need of force cooling fans and operating in full design specified AN mode.
Grid compliance Issues
A surprising number of IPP has had major problems with attaining full Grid compliancy for the full AC plant power design capacity as per their PPA. A majority of these was simply due to bad EPC design and underestimation of the South African Grid code. AEC has been actively involved firstly understanding and then resolving of these mission critical problem facing IPP’s.
The following summarize a research made for a PV plants in South Africa. The results from this document are based on estimates as we require the complete DIGSILENT model to determine with precision the voltages and capabilities of the PV Plant. PV modules considered in the preliminary study is BYD P6C-36 Series 3BB, with a configuration of 20 strings in series to consider the different operating voltage of the inverters in different conditions of active and reactive power. Active and reactive capabilities in the connexion point would be as follow:
For a 20 serial strings configuration working at 45°C maximum ambient temperature, minimum voltage in the maximum power point is 653V. For the different scenarios, minimum operating voltage of the inverters will be:
As shown in the above table, all scenarios are covered, where the MPPT voltage of the PV panels is higher than the minimum voltage required by the inverter. The maximum voltage in open circuit for 9ºC is 963V, lower than the maximum voltage held up by the inverter (1050 V). With 8 inverters the active and reactive power requirements are reached.
