Convergence with International Wind Power in China

According to the authoritative statistics of the relevant departments of the country, as of now, China's grid-connected wind power has reached 52.58 million kilowatts, replacing the United States and becoming the world's largest wind power country. In July of this year, the National Energy Administration issued the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan for Wind Power Development” and proposed that China’s wind power grid-connected capacity will reach 100 million kilowatts by 2015 and 200 million kilowatts by 2020.

While seeing the achievements and prospects, it must be acknowledged that the integration of wind power into the grid is a worldwide problem and a major bottleneck that has plagued the development of China's wind power industry. Industry insiders pointed out that cracking the wind power grid connection problem has broken through the development bottleneck of the wind power industry, and the standard is the key issue. This involves the connection of the wind farm to the power grid, wind farm performance testing and wind farm dispatching, and other three aspects.

Grid-connected testing of wind power quality Wind turbines will cause great risks to safe and stable operation of the power grid and reliable power supply if a network disconnection accident occurs. It also causes wind farm owners to suffer power loss. According to the State Electricity Regulatory Commission's “Wind Power Safety Supervision Report No. 4” in 2011, in 2011 alone, there were 193 accidents involving wind turbine generators that exceeded 100,000 kilowatts in China, and 12 large-scale accidents that exceeded 500,000 kilowatts.

Power system requirements for power quality are very strict and require the power supply performance to meet the corresponding standards. If wind power can not meet the power system's quality requirements for power, it will bring great problems to the power system. The deputy chief engineer of the Chinese Academy of Electrical Engineering and the Beijing Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE)’s Beijing branch** Hu Xuehao previously stated that the quality of wind turbines is a potential safety issue for power grids and it is urgent for third party testing agencies to The wind turbines perform quality certification and eliminate the unqualified wind turbines from the source to access the power system.

As we all know, wind power is a volatile, intermittent power supply, and the power system is balanced in real time. Wind power fluctuations need to be balanced through the regulation of conventional power supplies and energy storage systems. This is the biggest problem that has long plagued wind power grid integration. Many people in the wind power industry have pointed out that the lack or lag in the standards and testing standards for wind turbines and wind farms in China has constrained large-scale wind power grid integration.

The new national standard for wind power integration was formally implemented in June this year. The newly revised national standard “Technical Regulations for Wind Farm Access to Power Systems” (GB/T19963-2011) was formally implemented, replacing the old standard GB/Z19963-2005, and connected to wind farms. The general technical conditions for entering the power grid make specific provisions. Qin Shiyao, deputy director of the New Energy Institute of the Chinese Academy of Electric Power, said that one of the highlights of the new standard is the detailed requirements for low-voltage traversing of wind farms, and this is an important factor in measuring the quality of grid-connected wind power.

Low-voltage ride-through is when the voltage of the grid-connected point is caused by a grid fault, the wind turbine does not run off the grid continuously. When the power system fails, it can be cut out from the grid to improve the safety and stability of the grid. Previous accident investigations in China have shown that one of the main reasons for the large-scale loss of wind power is that some wind turbines that are connected to the grid do not have low-voltage ride-through capability and fail to provide dynamic reactive power support during faults.

The ultimate goal of wind power development is grid-connected power generation, but the power delivered by different power sources has advantages and disadvantages. If the quality of wind power fails to meet the standards, grid security will be seriously affected. In recent years, in order to eliminate unqualified wind power access to power systems, a series of related standards have been issued in China. The AQSIQ and the National Standards Commission have successively issued a series of national standards related to wind power, stipulating the design, production, installation, test and inspection, and grid connection of wind turbines; the National Energy Administration has issued 18 wind power standards for the energy industry. Some technical problems of wind power are regulated; in addition, the State Grid Corporation of China has also formulated and promulgated a number of corporate standards for wind power and standardized wind power integration.

In Qin Shiyao’s view, from national standards to industry standards to corporate standards, various levels of standards involving wind power grid integration have been implemented one after another, effectively solving the problems of unregulated wind farm construction, lack of standards for access to the power grid, and so on. The grid-connected bottleneck of wind power industry development.

Testing in accordance with international standards In recent years, China’s wind power equipment manufacturing industry has developed rapidly. Among the top 10 companies in the world’s total installed capacity of wind power manufacturers in 2011, there are 4 Chinese companies, and more and more companies are beginning to “go out”. To expand the international market. This also requires that the standard research and related inspections conducted by third-party agencies in China must be integrated with the international community.

Speaking of international integration, Qin Shiyao's center has another name - Wind Power Research and Evaluation Center. In September of this year, the China Wind Power Grid Research and Evaluation Center of the Chinese Academy of Electric Power has passed the laboratory supervision and expansion assessment, which can be based on the International Electrotechnical Commission, the German Classification Society, the German medium voltage network, the German low-voltage power grid, the Spanish power grid, and the American power grid. Other international standards, such as the development of wind turbine generators, have achieved international recognition. This provided strong support for its expansion of international business and domestic wind power manufacturers to enter the international market.

As early as September 2008, the center was recognized by the China National Accreditation Service for Conformity Assessment (CNAS) and became the first testing organization in China to obtain the internationally recognized wind turbine test qualification. "Getting the internationally recognized qualifications is just a starting point." Qin Shiyao said in an understated way. The most critical thing is to go to the international stage. The most important thing is that companies hold test reports in their hands. They do not recognize each other and test the ability of the laboratory to meet international standards. The field of inspection capabilities is a round-robin contest featuring internationally advanced laboratories. What is proud of this is that in the field of third-party testing in the wind power industry, his team is now representing China and is going to “fight the stage” on the international stage.

According to Chen Di, CNAS accredited Division 2, there are about 78 domestic approved wind energy and accessories testing laboratories. The recognition of domestic testing organizations is beneficial to the recognition of wind power equipment purchasers at home and abroad. The second is to help them continuously improve the quality management system and technical capabilities.