What are the main challenges of wind power systems?

Yes, intermittency could be a challenge when a greater part of the energy need depends on wind based energy. However, in a grid where multiple modes of generation like coal based, hydro, nuclear power plants cater to the energy pool, the seasonal variation in wind based power generation could be balanced by appropriately varying the generation from those power plants. In an ideal situation when we move towards net zero target, the challenge could become more pronounced, as most of the renewable energy sources we will have then have the same intermittency issue.

Predictability vs. Intermittency - Wind energy is variable but predictable through advanced forecasting, challenging the notion of unreliability. Environmental and Economic Benefits - Fuel-free operation eliminates emissions and offers stable, predictable energy costs. Grid Integration Challenges - Adapting power grids for the distributed nature of wind energy requires modernization and investment in smart technologies. Conclusion: Wind energy's predictability and benefits make it a key player in sustainable energy, necessitating a focus on overcoming grid integration challenges for a cleaner future.

The intermittent nature of wind can lead to a persistent imbalance in the active power, which can potentially lead to frequency instability, and other related disturbances. Thus, to deal with these problems, there is a requirement for a battery energy storage system (BESS) or other related storage to attain active power equilibrium and enhance the dynamic stability of the power system.

Main challenge is identifying site and land acquisition, intermittent nature of wind power, grid connectivity as wind farms are located in remote places, storage, Above all wind energy is not reliable and dependable source of energy as great deal of wind is required to generate substantial energy and very often low wind speed is a big concern

The real challenge of all renewables is the ability to share power across intermittency. This can only be achieved with global sharing of renewable resources, which would also require an interlinked global grid. Considering we have existing interlinks for other energy sources, as well as information grids there is no reason why these channels cannot be upgraded/used for the global sharing of renewable energy.

Two models could be followed. For offshore wind farms, higher density of wind electric generators is possible in a given area, thus possible to generate bulk power. For this case, converting the bulk power to HVDC to transmit to land station and then to convert again to AC for hooking up with the grid is becoming a more viable option both technology-wise as well as cost-wise. In the other model where the wind electric generators are distributed across a vast area (as in the case of onshore wind farms), it may be economical to connect the wind generation locally to the grid at the nearest point, so that a distributed feed is available to the grid, rather a single point feed. In the second option, even private players can be encouraged.

The Wind Power Project has to contain the power distribution efficiency management that will include the cost of energy transmission lines. The size of the Wind Farm has to be engineered to generate sufficient average power to justify the investment. The Wind Farm will also have to contain a battery storage system to regulate the energy produced and insure power generation with no interruption, to satisfy the demand designed for.

HVDC offshore substation technology is getting more adopted, even for floating ones, as the technology getting more matured and robust. Transmission of offshore wind electricity is gradually no more the critical showstopper coming to power loss over distance, from remote offshore regions. In fact, the onshore grid system, especially in underdeveloped terrains, could be the limiting factor instead, for distributing electricity throughout the whole nation.

Offshore Wind is definitely not utilized as a single source of application as an electricity producer, Power-to-Cross, i.e. P2X, is developing rapidly to utilize offshore wind farms as Green Hydrogen production factories directly offshore, where it could complement the supply chain of hydrogen bunkering doing it offshore. Besides electricity, piping the the green hydrogen produced back onshore, wind is integrating both mechanical and electrical technologies to produce renewable energy beyond just electricity.

The Wind Farm has to be treated as just one piece of a complex power generating system. Wind power has challenges that have to be addressed during the power generation system design in coordination with other system components, to satisfy the efficiency desired. Today’s technology includes realtime data transmission allowing for system health monitoring and optimization, backup for critical subsystems, digital Twin for malfunction detection and preventive maintenance.

Typically when power from offshore wind farms are aggregated and conveyed as bulk power to onshore through HVDC, the loss of one such offshore power feeder could mean a loss of Gigawatts of power to the grid, as we are currently seeing power capacities of upto 2 GW per such feeder. However, when the grid has many such feeds with a spare capacity, loss of one such feeding link should not cause a big deficit that could bring down the grid. Also, having the bulk power conveyed through HVDC, issues related to frequency stability could be reduced. With the trend in enhanced cyber security systems employed in energy industry, the threats related to cyber attacks on the grid should be better manageable.

If you really want to protect your wind turbine from expensive failures of electrical components and costly unscheduled downtime, you need to control relative humidity levels and salinity inside the wind turbine. Season changes in weather, distance to coastline and changes in temperature lead to corrosive conditions. You need to have a dry-air strategy that is tried and tested.

Wind power systems are complex systems containing mechanical and electrical components, each with its own challenges due to normal operating conditions as vibration, temperature, humidity, wind speed, water stress (heavy rain), lighting (inducing electrical noise), just to enumerate a few stress factors. They can all add to catastrophic failure if real time data on system health is not available. The design engineering team has to consider all this factors and include sensors to critical components to facilitate system shutdown, avoiding catastrophic failures. System health monitoring has to be designed to feed into preventive maintenance programs, with remote troubleshooting capability.

One hundred and fifty years of developing systems and strategy to support rotating machines generating energy efficiently and transmitting it from energy risk deposits of thermal energy sources, to the dense urban and industrial loads... has now to be transformed into a system of low inertia, synthetic generation from geographically diverse regions from those with transmission towers already in place. There are huge opportunities and needs to be innovative, to redefine how a power transmission system will service the loads from sources with new characteristics and modes of operation.

Increasing the power generated per machine is one thing that helps to increase the power generated per given area. Manufacturers have been pushing the limit of the rated power output of their machines and we have already come a long way, where we are able to generate Gigawatts of power just from a few offshore wind farms.

At present, it needs a conglomerate of parties with different Forte to come together to deliver mega wind power projects. While the expertise of manufacturing and installing wind electric generators lies with certain parties, the technology and engineering solution for facilities like HVDC substations rests with OEMs and the expertise for building the facilities (like offshore HVDC platform) that house the OEM equipment lies with contractors having vast experience in executing offshore oil and gas facilities. While each of these parties will remain leaders in their own domains, avenues for training and knowledge gaining may be limited only to the interfaces involving these parties.

Resource Availability Wind resources are not uniformly distributed, and optimal locations for wind farms may be far from population centers. This necessitates the development of long-distance transmission infrastructure to transport electricity to where it is needed.