Debbie,

On Tue, 26 Sep 2006 05:00:36 +1000 (EST), Debbie wrote:

> There's a large wind-turbine "farm" going up on the Gippsland coast here in
> Victoria. The wind doesn't blow all the time (duh!) and when it does the
> turbine blades (3-bladed model in this case) can rotate at any speed from dead
> slow to damn fast. The power grid they contribute to is 3-phase, 415V, 50Hz in
> Australia. So how to they synchronise the turbines' output to the required
> frequency and phase? Just curious.

I'm not sure of the details, but it's what they have to do with all the generators on the grid of any type - gas, coal, steam, hydro, nuclear, whatever.  
There are a number of ways from adjusting the speed (field coils control that), using rotary converters (a motor driving a generator), to converting 
to DC and back.  If you have great speed variation then the DC route is probably the easiest.

Cheers,


Howard Winter
St.Albans, England


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