Landsvirkjun develops a wind firming solution

Landsvirkjun intends to offer wind farm developers a service which will smooth (or “firm”) variability in power output due to changing wind conditions. Developers would deliver surplus power to Landsvirkjun when winds are strong, allowing Landsvirkjun to save water in its reservoirs. At other times, when winds are low, customers would receive power from Landsvirkjun to supplement their own output. The service will help wind farm operators to provide more stable power to their customers.

Landsvirkjun’s ability to provide this service would be subject to several conditions, including the availability of power, a supporting legal and regulatory framework and sufficient transmission grid capacity, amongst other things.

Landsvirkjun anticipates offering its wind firming service under a long-term agreement. Long-term firming agreements will help wind farm developers to make longer sales contracts with customers requiring power stability, and ultimately to attract the long-term investment they need.

Dispatchable power is essential to the provision of wind firming services but is in short supply in Iceland. Landsvirkjun has increasingly resorted to power curtailment in recent years, as a result of rising peak power demand from customers. The company is developing additional dispatchable power for the electricity system, including the capacity expansion at Sigalda and the construction of Hvammur hydro power station. These projects are about to get underway and it will be some years before they become operational.

The wind firming service will, in all likelihood, be partially curtailable during periods when the load on Landsvirkjun’s electricity system is peaking. Such curtailments would necessitate flexibility on the part of end-users. Based on planned new hydropower and additional measures, Landsvirkjun aims to offer for sale up to 100 MW of curtailable power which could potentially firm wind farms with total installed capacity of around 250 MW.

Transmission grid constraints between different regions of the country affect the ability of Landsvirkjun to deliver power and also matter when it comes to provision of the wind firming service. The locations of the wind farm, its end users, and the dispatchable power used for firming, all need to be considered. These attributes vary across wind farm projects and therefore need to be evaluated separately for each project, on a case-by-case basis.

Interested parties are encouraged to contact Landsvirkjun.