Tesla [Australia] big battery outsmarts lumbering coal units after Loy Yang [plant] trips

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http://reneweconomy.com.au/tesla-big-battery-outsmarts-lumbering-coal-units-after-loy-yang-trips-70003/

 

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Tesla big battery outsmarts lumbering coal units after Loy Yang trips

 

To be clear, on the timing of the response of this generators, some did some minor adjustments (1MW) as part of regulation FCAS, the moment they dropped below 50Hz.

The interesting thing here is the speed with which Tesla responded to the contingency FCAS market, which is triggered after frequency gets to 49.8Hz. That was pretty much instantaneous. And they did it from a standing start, unlike the other generators.
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Last Thursday, one of the biggest coal units in Australia, Loy Yang A 3, tripped without warning at 1.59am, with the sudden loss of 560MW and causing a slump in frequency on the network.

What happened next has stunned electricity industry insiders and given food for thought over the near to medium term future of the grid, such was the rapid response of the Tesla big battery to an event that happened nearly 1,000km away.

Even before the Loy Yang A unit had finished tripping, the 100MW/129MWh had responded, injecting 7.3MW into the network to help arrest a slump in frequency that had fallen below 49.80Hertz.

Data from AEMO (and gathered above by Dylan McConnell from the Climate and Energy College) shows that the Tesla big battery responded four seconds ahead of the generator contracted at that time to provide FCAS (frequency control and ancillary services), the Gladstone coal generator in Queensland.

But in reality, the response from the Tesla big battery was even quicker than that – in milliseconds – but too fast for the AEMO data to record.

Importantly, by the time that the contracted Gladstone coal unit had gotten out of bed and put its socks on so it can inject more into the grid – it is paid to respond in six seconds – the fall in frequency had already been arrested and was being reversed.

Gladstone injected more than Tesla did back into the grid, and took the frequency back up to its normal levels of 50Hz, but by then Tesla had already put its gun back in its holster and had wandered into the bar for a glass of milk.

So why did the Tesla big battery respond when not contracted?

One reason is because it can, and so it did.
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Note: The Tesla big battery is known to the grid as the Hornsdale Power Reserve, as it is located near the Hornsdale wind farm in South Australia, also owned and operated by Neoen. Hence the acronym HPR in such tables.
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[Unobscured Vision]

Bwahaha ... bwahahahahaha! This should silence all critics that have said that the Tesla install was unneeded or flawed somehow. Smart power is the future.  Time to get with the program.

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You can bet other utilities, especially here in the US where some of the infrastructure is elderly to say the least, will be going to school on this.