Planning, protection and operational challenges faced in connecting a remote solar farm in mid-west Queensland — Purely Creative Solutions

Planning, protection and operational challenges faced in connecting a remote solar farm in mid-west Queensland (264)

Mathew Holden 1 , Robert Bates 1
  1. Ergon Energy/Energy Queensland, Townsville, QUEENSLAND, Australia

With a fault level of only 45 MVA and customer load of 3.3 MVA, connection of an 18 MW Solar Farm at Hughenden in mid-western Queensland presented some unique challenges to Energy Queensland. This paper reviews the methodology adopted by the Planning, Protection and Operations teams to facilitate connection of a modern renewable power station to a substation that started life in the ‘70s as the grid connection to an isolated diesel fired power station. Voltage management, load constraints, distributed anti-islanding and contingency driven generator ramp down are considered, including comparison to actual performance and initial operational experience. Network impacts observed during Generator Performance Standard testing will be discussed and compared to modelled results.