Alberta Power News Round Up - October 18th, 2017

Alberta News

ENMAX Has Received a Favourable Ruling With Respect to Its PPA Termination

Following a disagreement between ENMAX and the Balancing Pool on the start date of its PPA termination, ENMAX has receive a favourable decision.

However, no decision has been made on the larger court case with the Alberta government.

Canadian and World News

Siemens Builds the World's Most Powerful Shunt Reactor

England is constructing the world's largest wind farm capable of producing 1,218 MW of wind generation and requiring 900 km of under sea cable.

In order to provide reactive power compensation, maintain the system's voltage within its defined limits and thus achieve grid stability, Siemens has constructed 220 kV, 120–300 MVAr variable shunt reactors.

Maintaining the system's voltage within the prescribed limits is one of the biggest challenges faced by wind generation due to its variable nature.

Experts Warn that Power Systems Are Still Vulnerable to Cyber Attacks

A new malware has been detected which, unlike previous attacks that required some human input, could automatically automatically initiate power loss and rendering computers unuseable which would prolong black outs.

“The problem is that these protocols were designed decades ago, and back then industrial systems were meant to be isolated from the outside world,” says Anton Cherepanov, a senior malware researcher at the firm. “Thus, their communication protocols were not designed with security in mind."

More on California's Law Requiring for Utilities to Plan for How Renewables Can Be Used for Peak Load

In California, utilities are struggling with how to fully integrate renewables. Energy consumption is highest in the evening when people return from work, but this is also when the sun sets and less power is produced from solar energy--a large component of California's energy mix.

This demand is currently supplied by natural gas generating facilities but running gas plants for short bursts is also costly to rate payers and runs contrary to the government's energy vision.

The California legislature has mandated that "utilities to evaluate how storage, energy efficiency and distributed energy resources can meet peak power needs".

Fun Stuff

This photo shows the impact of downed ENMAX power line. Protection equipment operates quickly, but in extreme weather, stay clear of power lines.

Axiom wrote an opinion piece on "why China is winning the clean energy race".

VICE news wrote a piece on a sail technology that could greatly reduce the shipping industry's GHG emissions.

#Siemens #ShuntReactor #malware #cybersecurity #peakload #naturalgasplants #solarpower #storms #downedpowerlines #China #California #PPAs #ENMAX #AlbertaGovernment