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Industrial Electronics
Harnessing
the
wind
Perry Schugart looks at how the growth of wind power markets around the world has created a critical need for
power conversion systems that are equipped to meet the unique requirements of the industry
F
ollowing a decade of “spectacular” has developed the PowerModule
growth, the world’s wind energy PM3000W, which is a fully
capacity is predicted to nearly programmable, flexible and modular
triple in the next five years, according power converter designed to meet the
to the Global Wind Energy Council’s challenges related to wind power
(GWEC) Global Wind 2008 Report. conversion. A modular power converter
This market development, the report platform it can be utilised across
shows, will be led by tremendous multiple wind energy applications -
growth in China, and steady expansion streamlining manufacturing processes
in Europe and North America. GWEC and reducing time to market, and
is predicting that in 2013, global wind therefore, lowering the overall cost of
generating capacity will stand at 332 wind energy converter systems.
gigawatts (GW), up from 120 GW at
the end of 2008. The offshore wind Optimising output
power market is predicted to add Offering a combination of flexibility
nearly 2.3GW of new capacity by the and efficiency, the PM3000W is also
end of 2009 and to begin a period of highly scalable and designed for
rapid growth beginning mid-decade. rapid integration into a wide range of
Industry research firm Emerging Energy wind turbines with power ratings
Research expects the total global from 750 kilowatts (kW) – the basic
installed base of offshore wind power PM3000W building block – up to 6
to exceed 50GW by 2020. MW. It has additionally been
In order to harness the best wind engineered to withstand the severe
resources both on-and offshore, larger- climatic changes and poor power grid
scale wind farms often must be located conditions described above that are
in highly remote areas with severe encountered at remote wind farms.
weather and temperature conditions, AMSC isn’t new to this market and
and weak power grids. While the was, in its development of the
intermittent nature of wind power PM3000W converter, able to draw on
alone presents unique challenges in an extensive range of capabilities. For
terms of power conversion, these added example the company has extensive
factors make the need for tailored power electronics hardware and
solutions a vital component to the software experience; considerable
success of wind power installations. knowledge gained in the deployment
American Superconductor (AMSC) of thousands of PowerModule
contined on page 38
36 September 2009 Components in Electronics www.cieonline.co.uk
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