EDP Renewables (EDPR) and Vestas have built a turbine-coupled hybrid demonstrator with solar at the Janda III wind farm in Cádiz, Spain. The hybrid demonstrator is a combination of an existing Vestas V112-3.0 MW turbine and 372 kW of a new solar photovoltaic (PV).
The PV power is fed to the turbine as direct current, which is then converted and transformed by the turbine's ad-hoc modified power conversion system in order to export the power to the grid. By combining wind and PV, the demonstrator offers increased capacity factor and annual energy production. The demonstrator is the result of a close collaboration between Vestas and EDPR with EDPR owning both turbine and PV array. For the project, Vestas has upgraded the technical specifications of the turbine's controllers, converters and design as well as installed new hardware. By connecting wind and solar through the turbine's power electronics and utilising its full-scale converter, the number of converters is reduced, contributing to lower equipment costs and thus cost of energy.
