Windintegrationworkshop

About the Workshop

In the fall of 1999, two Ph.D. students who were working at the Department for Electric Power Systems of the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden spent many hours discussing the integration of wind power into power systems and possible applications of HVDC technology for offshore wind farms. It soon became clear that these topics would interest and require a wider audience including experts from the wind industry. The result was the International Workshop on Feasibility of HVDC Transmission Networks for Offshore Wind Farms organized at the Royal Institute of Technology in spring 2000.

This first two-day workshop was a success, with 52 participants and a lively discussion about the mentioned topics. Issues like the Modeling of Wind Turbines, European Offshore Supergrids and Voltage-Source- Converter-based HVDC systems dominated the discussion. The event was repeated in 2001 (Final program 2001) with now 133 (!) participants and in 2002 (Final program 2002) with 100 participants.

The feedback after the 2002 workshop showed us that for the future participants would appreciate a new location - as Stockholm in March is not a very exciting place - but, above all, a wider approach to the topic. At that point, Eltra the former system operator of Western Denmark became interested in supporting the event and the 2003 workshop moved to Billund in Denmark. It was also renamed into Fourth International Workshop on Large-scale Integration of Wind Power and Transmission Networks for Offshore Wind Farms to underline the importance of questions related to the large-scale integration of wind power into power systems. The event attracted 171 participants, and for the first time it was held in sessions. A special highlight was a field trip including a helicopter flight over the offshore wind farm of Horns Rev.

Moving the workshop to Denmark was a real success and gave rise to the idea to organize each workshop in a different European country. In 2005, the Fifth Workshop was hosted by the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK, in cooperation with the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden and took place in Glasgow. Following this workshop, the organization of future workshops was taken over by Energynautics GmbH, a company founded by one of the "fathers" of the workshop, Thomas Ackermann who had been the main organizer of this event from the very beginning.

In 2006, the Sixth Workshop was organized in cooperation with the Technical University Delft, Netherlands. For the first time, the number of participants exceeded 200. The event included a boat trip to the Egmond aan Zee Offshore Wind farm. This field trip will be kept in vivid memory, not only because of the wind farm, but also due to the challenging weather conditions.

The Seventh International Workshop on Large-Scale Integration of Wind Power into Power Systems as well as on Transmission Networks for Offshore Wind Farms was held in Madrid in May 2008. The number of abstracts submitted to this workshop was more than twice that of the previous workshop. Therefore, the event now included three parallel sessions. The organizers had initial doubts whether this size and number of parallel sessions still corresponded to the original workshop idea. However, the majority of the participants welcomed size and number of parallel sessions as a good working basis for this event.

With 288 participants, there was an increase of 40% compared to 2006 (see Figure 2). The participants came from 30 countries, adding 9 countries to the 2006 numbers (see Figure 3 and 4).
The affiliation of the Madrid participants showed a surprisingly even distribution of the following categories (see Figure 5):

29% universities or R&D organizations;
21% transmission or distribution network operators;
20% wind power industry (wind turbine manufactures and suppliers such as inverter or cable supplier);
15% project developers;
11% consulting companies;

This distribution confirms the organizers' intention to provide a combined forum for academic/scientific institutions and the industry experts.

Due to the very positive general feedback regarding the Madrid workshop, another workshop will take place in 2009 in Bremen, Germany and discussions regarding the 2010 edition of the event have already started. With the North American Utility Wind Integration Group as an interested partner, the organizers look at Canada 2010!... more information will be available at the 8th International Workshop on Large-Scale Integration of Wind Power into Power Systems as well as on Transmission Networks for Offshore Wind Farms on 14-15 October in Bremen, Germany!

Graphic: Location and Number of Past Workshops