Landsnet, an independent power transmission company in Iceland, has placed an order with American Superconductor Corp. (AMSC) for a 40-MVAR Dynamic VAR (D-VAR) compensator system for a transmission grid in Iceland. The DVC system will be installed at the Hryggstekkur Substation, located near a new aluminum plant that will add approximately 540 MW of new electrical load to the power grid. The DVC system — an extension of AMSC's D-VAR product line — will provide dynamic voltage control and regulation, and will support overall power network stability. AMSC expects to ship the DVC system in the summer of 2006 for installation and start commissioning in the fall of 2006.

“With the greatly expanded electrical load on our system upon startup of the new aluminum plant, we need to provide a substantial amount of dynamic reactive compensation on the grid to ensure continued reliable operation of our network,” said Gunnlaugur Nielsen of Landsnet. “We selected the DVC solution because it has a proven track record of performance and high reliability in similar applications.”

DVC systems are large-scale transmission-level reactive power solutions built on AMSC's D-VAR platform. The DVC solution uses inverter-based flexible ac transmission systems (FACTs) technology and proprietary fast-switched control of capacitors and reactors.

More cost-effective than static VAR compensators, and with equal or better performance, DVC systems provide transmission-level dynamic reactive compensation in the range of tens of MVARs to several hundred MVARs.