For well over a decade, many Australian commercial and industrial energy users have relied on Capstone turbines to provide power, heat and cooling to their facilities in order to reduce energy costs, emissions or to provide additional power where the grid is constrained or not available.

The unique architecture of the Capstones technology, which uses power electronics to convert and condition the power, allows it to accurately follow the sites electrical and heat load requirements without restriction. This in turn enables Optimal’s customers to use our turbines to their maximum benefit, regardless of changing demand.

With the rapid rise of distributed power generation systems across the grid such as solar, wind and batteries, the distribution networks have had to cope with the new realities of both fluctuating demand and supply of energy. The rapid rise in adoption of low voltage inverter based solar and battery systems has resulted in the development of new inverter standards (AS4777.2) which many utilities have now adopted.

The new standards provide networks with more control and surety that these inverter-based systems will operate safely and will not impact the stable operation of the grid itself.

Capstone completed AS4777.2 accreditation on the 200 kW turbines in 2018, which includes the packaged 600, 800- and 1,000-kW range of modular systems. With the completion of AS4777 accreditation of the C65 model, now covers over 96% of Capstones currently operating as grid connected in Australia.