Saudi Arabia Joins the Condenser Revival as the Kingdom of Oil Pursues Big Solar

The 2020s have a lot in common with the 1920s when it comes to the buildout of electrical power. Back then, grids were largely driven by coal, which was polluting, to be sure, but offered stability to big, national electrical systems with power plants that often ran uninterrupted for long periods of time. Then came hydropower, with its distant electrical power generators. Power engineers, trying to figure out how to transmit power from faraway places, developed an unusual machine called a synchronous condenser. What makes the condenser unique is that, unlike a traditional rotating machine such as a motor or a generator, it spins freely without producing mechanical or electrical power.

So what does a condenser do? It manages something called reactive power, also known as “phantom” power. Indeed, like the Phantom of the Opera himself — who once stalked the tunnels below the Paris Opera House — reactive power mysteriously gathers around, jumps, and otherwise haunts power grids. If it’s not controlled properly, blackout risks mount. A hundred years ago, condensers solved the problem of controlling voltage on high-potential long-distance transmission lines. Today, with the rise of many forms of renewables, there are a lot of obstacles to move that power to customers when they want it — there’s a lot more phantom power to control. And that’s driving robust demand, a revival of sorts, for the synchronous condenser.

Saudi Arabia, which aims to generate 50% of its electricity from renewable energy by 2030, has embarked on a substantial solar buildout and is discovering that it, too, needs condensers. Recently, the Saudi Electric Company made the decision to stabilize electricity coming from multiple renewable sites across the country with synchronous condensers from GE Vernova.

Interestingly, GE developed the first condenser way back in 1919. A 1920 edition of the GE Review highlights the breakthrough, made at the time by the company’s Alternating-Current Engineering Department. That was quite fortunate, because the U.S. was entering the “Big Dam Era,” an intense period of hydroelectric expansion that ran for three decades, into the 1960s. Fast-forward from big dams to big solar. According to the Energy Information Administration, Saudi Arabia has more than 21 gigawatts in planned renewable energy projects, the majority of which are for solar power.

Pierre Marx, leader of GE Vernova’s Power Conversion & Storage business for southern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, who is overseeing the Saudi effort, likes to point out that the rising use of condensers brings with it a bonus to the energy transition. Because they burn no fuel and run instead on electricity, condensers are starting to counteract the more recent practice of running power generation turbines purely for the sake of creating stability in the grid. The condenser, like the turbine, explains Marx, is simply another “big rotating machine.” And “to have big rotating machines connected to the network, stabilizing the frequency, means you can integrate more renewable generation sources, using fewer gas turbines, hydro turbines, or coal turbines for the sole role of stabilization. You just need fewer big machines, because the condenser … stabilizes the frequency.”

Marx says the main reason the condenser is enjoying a revival is that, despite the many other technologies developed over the past century to manage reactive power, the current uptake of renewables is so massive that a larger opposing force is needed to manage that variability. Condensers can both absorb reactive power when there’s too much and create reactive power when there’s too little. It all adds up to the power engineer’s dream of inertia, a fancy term for stable voltage — and stable current — that keeps the system in a happy, functional state.

That the condenser functions as a true assistant to decarbonization is terrific news for the energy transition. Marx explains that it’s not just the rise of renewables that’s driving new demand, but electrification itself — the heady growth of power as more work and services come over to the platform of electricity. “You get this dynamic, almost triple effect,” he says: rising renewables, rising electricity demand, and the need to keep up with the burgeoning need for stability. Marx says the company also actively engages in continuing analysis to better anticipate where condenser demand is likely to rise in the near future all over the world. “We have a map we maintain,” he says.

Because Saudi Arabia sits on some of the lowest-cost oil in the world, the country has traditionally used some of this resource to actually produce electricity. That’s not an efficient use of oil, to say the least, as the kingdom’s ambitious Vision 2030 initiative clearly acknowledges. One of the sites chosen for condenser installation is the Al Kahafah Solar Power Plant in the Eastern Province, which, upon completion this year, will be one of the largest solar power plants in the world. This and the other condenser installations will follow the various solar and wind projects as they’re completed in the kingdom over the next five years.

Marx reflects that after years of experience in the global power sector, he’s concluded that “the power grid is perhaps one of the most complex things humans can build. And I’m surprised how hard it can be to understand.” Indeed, most people are unaware that the grid must produce not just real power for humans to use, but also phantom power for the grid itself to use. “Years ago, we were probably looking at retiring condensers. Now we are bringing back that old technology, refreshing it, and combining it with new technology. We faced that complexity. And now we will get the best output.”