Fault ride through of fully rated converter wind turbines with AC and DC transmission

Fault ride through of fully rated converter wind turbines in an offshore wind farm connected to onshore network via either high voltage AC (HVAC) or high voltage DC (HVDC) transmission is described. Control of the generators and the grid side converters is shown using vector control techniques. A de-loading scheme was used to protect the wind turbine DC link capacitors from over voltage. How de-loading of each generator aids the fault ride through of the wind farm connected through HVAC transmission is demonstrated. The voltage recovery of the AC network during the fault was enhanced by increasing the reactive power current of the wind turbine grid side converter. A practical fault ride through protection scheme for a wind farm connected through an HVDC link is to employ a chopper circuit on the HVDC link. Two alternatives to this approach are also discussed. The first involves de-loading the wind farm on detection of the fault, which requires communication of the fault condition to each wind turbine of the wind farm. The second scheme avoids this complex communication requirement by transferring the fault condition via control of the HVDC link to the offshore converter. The fault performances of the three schemes are simulated and the results were used to assess their respective capabilities.     

Coordinate control strategy for stability operation of offshore wind farm integrated with Diode-rectifier HVDC

Due to low investment cost and high reliability, a new scheme called DR-HVDC (Diode Rectifier based HVDC) transmission was recently proposed for grid integration of large offshore wind farms. However, in this scheme, the application of conventional control strategies for stability operation face several challenges due to the uncontrollability of the DR. In this paper, a coordinated control strategy of offshore wind farms using the DR-HVDC transmission technology to connect with the onshore grid, is investigated. A novel coordinated control strategy for DR-HVDC is proposed based on the analysis of the DC current control ability of the full-bridge-based modular multilevel converter (FB-MMC) at the onshore station and the input and output characteristics of the diode rectifier at the offshore. Considering the characteristics of operation stability and decoupling between reactive power and active power, a simplified design based on double-loop droop control for offshore AC voltage is proposed after power flow and voltage–current (I–V) characteristics of the offshore wind farm being analyzed. Furthermore, the impact of onshore AC fault to offshore wind farm is analyzed, and a fast fault detection and protection strategy without relying on communication is proposed. Case studies carried out by PSCAD/EMTDC verify the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy for the start up, power fluctuation, and onshore and offshore fault conditions.     

Grid connection of large offshore wind farms using HVDC

This article describes the use of high‐voltage DC (HVDC) transmission systems for connection of large offshore wind farms using doubly fed induction generators (DFIGs) to the main grid. HVDC systems based on voltage source converters (VSC transmission) and on line‐commutated converters (LCC HVDC) are discussed. The article describes proposed system configurations, operating principles and controls for the two technologies. PSCAD/EMTDC simulations are presented to demonstrate the robust performance of the proposed systems during variation of generation and onshore AC fault conditions. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

海上风电场智慧运维管理系统

  目的  针对海上风电场运维安全管理,提出了海上风电场智慧运维管理系统。  方法  通过海上风电智慧调度系统、海上风电雷达多源跟踪及边界警示系统、海上风电场风机平台作业监管系统,搭建出海上风电场智慧运维管理系统。  结果  通过陆上集控中心的海上风电智慧调度系统,实现人员的安全管理以及船舶调度。通过海上风电雷达多源跟踪及边界警示系统,实现海域船只全范围跟踪,并确保海上风电场的风机及海缆安全。通过风机平台的海上风电场风机平台作业监管系统,实现风机作业人员在风机平台的全面管理。  结论  研究的系统实现了海上风电场人、船、风机的全面管理,有力保障了人员的安全管理以及船舶调度,提高了海上风电场的风机及海缆安全性,实现海上风电场智慧运维效率,有望在工程中应用推广。     

海上风电多端柔性直流并网系统频率支持研究

针对海上风电多端柔性直流(VSC-MTDC)并网系统,重点研究风电VSC-MTDC对岸上电网调频功能.通过建立详细风电场、换流站和电网模型,提出一种适用于海上风电VSC-MTDC并网系统动态频率调节方法,即改进斜率控制.整个海上风电场VSC-MTDC加入改进斜率控制后,可使有功功率在若干岸上换流站之间合理分配,从而确保...     

Power generation efficiency analysis of offshore wind farms connected to a SLPC (single large power converter) operated with variable frequencies considering wake effects

This paper deals with the power generation efficiency analysis of a proposed offshore wind farm topology, consisting of a SLPC (single large power converter) that simultaneously controls a group of generators. This common converter can operate at a VF (variable frequency) or at a CF (constant frequency). The results are compared with the conventional onshore wind farm scheme, where individual power converters are connected to each turbine, guaranteeing maximum power generation for the entire wind farm. A methodology to analyze different wind speed and direction scenarios, and to compute the optimal electrical frequency for each one, is presented and applied to different case studies depending on the wind farm size. In order to obtain more realistic values of wind speeds, the wake effect amongst wind turbines is considered. A wake model considering single, partial and multiple wakes inside a wind farm and taking into account different wind directions, is presented. Both wind farm topologies are analyzed by means of simulations, taking into account both wind speed variability in wind farms and the number of wind turbines. The possible resulting benefits of simplifying the MPCs (multiple power converters) of each turbine, namely saving costs, reducing losses and maintenance and increasing the reliability of the system, are analyzed, focusing on the total power extraction. The SLPC-VF scheme is also compared with a CF scheme SLPC-CF, and it is shown that a significant power increase of more than 33% can be obtained with SLPC-VF.     

Life cycle assessment of a floating offshore wind turbine

A development in wind energy technology towards higher nominal power of the wind turbines is related to the shift of the turbines to better wind conditions. After the shift from onshore to offshore areas, there has been an effort to move further from the sea coast to the deep water areas, which requires floating windmills. Such a concept brings additional environmental impact through higher material demand. To evaluate additional environmental burdens and to find out whether they can be rebalanced or even offset by better wind conditions, a prospective life cycle assessment (LCA) study of one floating concept has been performed and the results are presented in this paper. A comparison with existing LCA studies of conventional offshore wind power and electricity from a natural gas combined cycle is presented. The results indicate similar environmental impacts of electricity production using floating wind power plants as using non-floating offshore wind power plants. The most important stage in the life cycle of the wind power plants is the production of materials. Credits that are connected to recycling these materials at the end-of-life of the power plant are substantial.     

Availability,operation and maintenance costs of offshore wind turbines with different drive train configurations

Different configurations of gearbox, generator and power converter exist for offshore wind turbines. This paper investigated the performance of four prominent drive train configurations over a range of sites distinguished by their distance to shore. Failure rate data from onshore and offshore wind turbine populations was used where available or systematically estimated where no data was available. This was inputted along with repair resource requirements to an offshore accessibility and operation and maintenance model to calculate availability and operation and maintenance costs for a baseline wind farm consisting of 100 turbines. The results predicted that turbines with a permanent magnet generator and a fully rated power converter will have a higher availability and lower operation and maintenance costs than turbines with doubly fed induction generators. This held true for all sites in this analysis. It was also predicted that in turbines with a permanent magnet generator, the direct drive configuration has the highest availability and lowest operation and maintenance costs followed by the turbines with two‐stage and three‐stage gearboxes. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Load flow analysis for variable speed offshore wind farms

A serial AC?DC integrated load flow algorithm for variable speed offshore wind farms is proposed. It divides the electrical system of a wind farm into several local networks, and different load flow methods are used for these local networks sequentially. This method is fast, more accurate, and many factors such as the different wind farm configurations, the control of wind turbines and the power losses of pulse width modulation converters are considered. The DC/DC converter model is proposed and integrated into load flow algorithm by modifying the Jacobian matrix. Two iterative methods are proposed and integrated into the load flow algorithm: one takes into account the control strategy of converters and the other considers the power losses of converters. In addition, different types of variable speed wind turbine systems with different control methods are investigated. Finally, the method is demonstrated using an 80-MW offshore wind farm.     

Ecological and economic cost-benefit analysis of offshore wind energy

Wind energy has experienced dramatic growth over the past decade. A small fraction of this growth has occurred offshore, but as the best wind resources become developed onshore, there is increasing interest in the development of offshore winds. Like any form of power production, offshore wind energy has both positive and negative impacts. The potential negative impacts have stimulated a great deal of opposition to the first offshore wind power proposals in the U.S. and have delayed the development of the first offshore wind farm in the U.S. Here we discuss the costs and benefits of offshore wind relative to onshore wind power and conventional electricity production. We review cost estimates for offshore wind power and compare these to estimates for onshore wind and conventional power. We develop empirical cost functions for offshore wind based on publicly reported projects from 2000 to 2008, and describe the limitations of the analysis. We use this analysis to inform a discussion of the tradeoffs between conventional, onshore and offshore wind energy usage.     

Maximum generation power evaluation of variable frequency offshore wind farms when connected to a single power converter

The paper deals with the evaluation of power generated by variable and constant frequency offshore wind farms connected to a single large power converter. A methodology to analyze different wind speed scenarios and system electrical frequencies is presented and applied to a case study, where it is shown that he variable frequency wind farm concept (VF) with a single power converter obtains 92% of the total available power, obtained with individual power converters in each wind turbine (PC). The PC scheme needs multiple power converters implying drawbacks in terms of cost, maintenance and reliability. The VF scheme is also compared to a constant frequency scheme CF, and it is shown that a significant power increase of more than 20% can be obtained with VF. The case study considers a wind farm composed of four wind turbines based on synchronous generators.     

Life cycle assessment of the offshore wind farm alpha ventus

Due to better wind conditions at sea, offshore wind farms have the advantage of higher electricity production compared to onshore and inland wind farms. In contrast, a greater material input, leading to increased energy consumptions and emissions during the production phase, is required to build offshore wind farms. These contrary effects are investigated for the first German offshore wind farm alpha ventus in the North Sea. In a life cycle assessment its environmental influence is compared to that of Germany’s electricity mix.In comparison to the mix, alpha ventus had better indicators in nearly every investigated impact category. One kilowatt-hour electricity, generated by the wind farm, was burdened with 0.137 kWh Primary Energy-Equivalent and 32 g CO₂-Equivalent, which represented only a small proportion of the accordant values for the mix. Furthermore, the offshore foundations as well as the submarine cable were the main energy intensive components. The energetic and greenhouse gas payback period was less than one year.Therefore, offshore wind power, even in deep water, is compatible with the switch to sustainable electricity production relying on renewable energies. Additional research, taking backup power plants as well as increasingly required energy storage systems into account, will allow further calculation.     

Challenges in the reliability and maintainability data collection for offshore wind turbines

Wind energy is abundantly available both onshore and offshore. As a response to the present climate crisis focus on wind energy is increasing due to its renewable and environmentally friendly characteristics. Due to social and political reasons the trend has been shifted largely from onshore to offshore wind farms. Offshore wind energy production faces a wide range of new challenges in design, development, manufacturing, installation, and maintenance and operation. The need, objectives, method, benefits, and application of a proposed reliability and maintainability database are identified in this paper. In the offshore oil and gas industry the OREDA concept for data collection has been running for more than 25 years. Therefore it will be briefly described what is considered to be the state of the art in this industry when it comes to data collection. Potential challenges and issues pertaining to the reliability and maintainability data collection of offshore wind turbines are outlined and categorized. The architecture of the proposed database is illustrated. The main building blocks of the database are briefly described and their possible effects on the reliability and maintainability of offshore wind turbines are highlighted. It is expected that the realization of the proposed database will open a new vista of knowledge in understanding the real behavior of offshore wind turbines in the marine environment. Another expectation is the benefits it will bring to the technological areas ranging from design to operation.     

Understanding public responses to offshore wind power

This paper is about understanding the role and importance of public responses to offshore wind power. It builds on a framework for understanding social acceptance and opposition to onshore turbines, and reviews the emerging research on offshore wind. While less is known about how people will respond to offshore than onshore wind, there is now an emerging body of research. From this literature, several common factors which influence responses have emerged and are discussed here: the (continued) role of visual impact; place attachment to the local area; lack of tangible benefits; relationships with developers and outsiders; and the role of the planning and decision-making systems. The paper argues that, as with onshore developments, the public should be included in decision-making about offshore wind farms, and that they have a key role which should not be underestimated. The paper concludes with some thoughts about the means to involve people and how effected communities might be effectively acknowledged, identified and engaged.     

Experience with voltage control from large offshore windfarms: the Danish case

This paper gives an overview of the state of the art and lists future challenges to reactive power and voltage control in the Danish transmission system in relation to large offshore windfarms. Today, the reliable and stable operation of the Danish transmission system is based on the voltage and frequency control carried out at central, conventional power plants. Moreover, the control of some larger decentralized combined heat and power units is activated for voltage control and system balancing, which is specific for the Danish system. In the years to come, according to the government's goal of increasing the share of renewable energy sources in the Danish power system, the share of large offshore windfarms in the Danish power generation mix will increase greatly, replacing central power plants, including their control characteristics during periods of strong winds. Large offshore windfarms must therefore provide the transmission system with the necessary voltage and frequency control, e.g. ancillary services, and ensure secure operation of the power system through their contribution to system service. Danish experience, based on the operation of a system with two large offshore windfarms and several smaller ones, has shown that the efficient use of windfarms' reactive power and voltage control for the on‐land transmission system might be limited by several factors. Among such limiting factors are the reactive power and current capability limits of the electronic power converters and switchable capacitor banks of the offshore wind turbines, which are smaller than those of central power plants measured per unit of the active power rating. Combine this with the use of AC cables, tens of kilometres long, to connect the large offshore windfarms to the on‐land transmission system, the reactive power range available to the transmission system gets poor. The Transmission System Operator should already take such limiting factors and alternative solutions for efficient reactive power and voltage control, such as incorporation of a reactive power compensation unit at the on‐land point of connection or evaluation of a Voltage Sourced Converter‐High Voltage Direct Current instead of an AC connection, into consideration during the planning phase for a windfarm connection. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A comparison of methods for assessing power output in non‐uniform onshore wind farms

Wind resource assessments are used to estimate a wind farm's power production during the planning process. It is important that these estimates are accurate, as they can impact financing agreements, transmission planning, and environmental targets. Here, we analyze the challenges in wind power estimation for onshore farms. Turbine wake effects are a strong determinant of farm power production. With given input wind conditions, wake losses typically cause downstream turbines to produce significantly less power than upstream turbines. These losses have been modeled extensively and are well understood under certain conditions. Most notably, validation of different model types has favored offshore farms. Models that capture the dynamics of offshore wind conditions do not necessarily perform equally as well for onshore wind farms. We analyze the capabilities of several different methods for estimating wind farm power production in 2 onshore farms with non‐uniform layouts. We compare the Jensen model to a number of statistical models, to meteorological downscaling techniques, and to using no model at all. We show that the complexities of some onshore farms result in wind conditions that are not accurately modeled by the Jensen wake decay techniques and that statistical methods have some strong advantages in practice.     

Environmental and social footprint of offshore wind energy. Comparison with onshore counterpart

Offshore wind power comprises a relatively new challenge for the international wind industry with a demonstration history of around twenty years and a ten-year commercial history for large, utility-scale projects. By comparison to other forms of electric power generation, offshore wind energy is generally considered to have relatively benign effects on the marine environment. However, offshore projects include platforms, turbines, cables, substations, grids, interconnection and shipping, dredging and associated construction activity. The Operation & Maintenance (O&M) activities include the transport of employees by vessel or helicopter and occasional hardware retrofits. Therefore, various impacts are incurred in the construction, operation and decommissioning phases; mainly the underwater noise and the impacts on the fauna. Based on the fact that in many of the aforementioned issues there are still serious environmental uncertainties, contradictive views and emerging research, the present work intents to provide a thorough literature review on the environmental and social impacts of offshore wind energy projects in comparison with the onshore counterparts.     

GHG emissions and energy performance of offshore wind power

This paper presents specific life cycle GHG emissions from wind power generation from six different 5 MW offshore wind turbine conceptual designs. In addition, the energy performance, expressed by the energy indicators Energy Payback Ratio (EPR) Energy Payback Time (EPT), is calculated for each of the concepts.There are currently few LCA studies in existence which analyse offshore wind turbines with rated power as great as 5 MW. The results, therefore, give valuable additional environmental information concerning large offshore wind power. The resulting GHG emissions vary between 18 and 31.4 g CO₂-equivalents per kWh while the energy performance, assessed as EPR and EPT, varies between 7.5 and 12.9, and 1.6 and 2.7 years, respectively. The relatively large ranges in GHG emissions and energy performance are chiefly the result of the differing steel masses required for the analysed platforms. One major conclusion from this study is that specific platform/foundation steel masses are important for the overall GHG emissions relating to offshore wind power. Other parameters of importance when comparing the environmental performance of offshore wind concepts are the lifetime of the turbines, wind conditions, distance to shore, and installation and decommissioning activities.Even though the GHG emissions from wind power vary to a relatively large degree, wind power can fully compete with other low GHG emission electricity technologies, such as nuclear, photovoltaic and hydro power.     

Attitudes towards on-land and offshore wind power development in Denmark; choice of development strategy

Wind power generation is expected to increase significantly in the near future. Owing to the increasingly limited possibilities for using on-land turbines, offshore wind generation is a potential alternative. However, wind turbines located offshore are still associated with visual disamenities potentially making offshore location a less attractive alternative to on-land wind power generation. The present paper analyses attitudes towards both on-land and offshore wind power development using a probit model. It also discusses the elicited determinants of attitude in relation to developing wind power on-land or offshore. Compared to other papers on attitude, the paper is unique in the sense that the Danish population has considerable experience with the different impacts associated with wind turbines compared to most of the other countries investing in wind power generation. This is particularly evident with regards to offshore development. The paper establishes that whilst offshore wind farms are preferred to on-land development, the results also imply that on-land development is still a feasible alternative. In that relation, differences in wind power generation costs and the substitution of smaller on-land turbines with fewer but larger turbines might make on-land development even more attractive. On a more detailed level, younger respondents are more positive towards wind power than older respondents. Interestingly, respondents living close to either on-land or offshore wind turbines did not display a more negative attitude towards wind power generation when compared to respondents who were not living close to wind turbines.     

Greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generated by offshore wind farms

For wind power generation offshore sites offer significantly better wind conditions compared to onshore. At the same time, the demand for raw materials and therefore the related environmental impacts increase due to technically more demanding wind energy converters and additional components (e.g. substructure) for the balance of plant. Additionally, due to environmental concerns offshore wind farms will be sited farshore (i.e. in deep water) in the future having a significant impact on the operation and maintenance efforts (O&M). Against this background the goal of this analysis is an assessment of the specific GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions as a function of the site conditions, the wind mill technology and the O&M necessities. Therefore, a representative offshore wind farm is defined and subjected to a detailed LCA (life cycle assessment). Based on parameter variations and modifications within the technical and logistical system, promising configurations regarding GHG emissions are determined for different site conditions. Results show, that all parameters related to the energy yield have a distinctive impact on the specific GHG emissions, whereas the distance to shore and the water depth affect the results marginally. By utilizing the given improvement potentials GHG emissions of electricity from offshore wind farms are comparable to those achieved onshore.