Which bit, what a synchronous condenser is?Its not my area of...

Which bit, what a synchronous condenser is?

Its not my area of expertise but I can probably put it into layman's terms. When an alternating current synchronous electric motor is in a steady state, the rotation of the shaft synchronises with the frequency of the supplied electric current equal to the AC cycle.

Large turbines traditionally exist as power generators but they also serve as spinning pieces of equipment to modulate the frequency of the electricity grid.

With more renewables coming online that produce electricity without frequency control, there's less of these large spinning units available to modulate the grid frequency.

synchronous condensers are essentially like big flywheels that they bring up to a rotating speed to serve this function instead.

In this instance they're installing a clutch to allow the turbine to be bought up to speed and then it's disconnected from the steam circuit and just acts as a large spinning piece of metal to manage the grid frequency.

When it's running as a condenser it doesn't generate power, but it (likely Ratch since they're building it) gets paid by AEMO for frequency management instead.


From memory this is the first conversion to be undertaken in Aus, there are synchronous condensers being used in SA but they're purpose built for the task, not a gas turbine/ condenser hybrid arrangement like this.