ORE Catapult Awards GE with Grid Emulation System Contract

GE Energy Power Conversion UK has been awarded a contract by ORE Catapult to design, supply, deliver, install, test and commission a Grid Emulation System including cabling and containment at ORE Catapult’s test facility in Blyth, UK.

The contract was awarded on 31 March and is valued at around GBP 4 million.

The fully containerised Grid Emulation System will be used in the 15MW wind turbine nacelle/powertrain test facility (i.e. Fujin) and 3MW marine nacelle/powertrain test facility (i.e. Nautilus).

The Grid Emulation System will allow ORE Catapult to conduct electrical power quality test and the possibility of accelerated validation of wind and marine renewable energy devices in a controlled environment reducing time to market, improving reliability and mitigating the risks associated with deployment of these devices, the test centre said.

The main requirement for the Grid Emulation System is to accommodate, as a minimum a 13MW wind turbine output. The Grid Emulation System will allow the testing of various wind turbine configurations, such as generator with fully rated grid converter, doubly fed induction generator, synchronous generator without fully rated inverter, etc.