Transient studies in large offshore wind farms, taking into account network/circuit breaker interaction

Switching overvoltages (SOV) are considered a possible source of experienced component failures in existing offshore wind farms (OWFs). The inclusion of sufficiently accurate and validated models of the main components in the OWF in the simulation tool is therefore an important issue in order to ensure reliable switching operations. Transient measurement results in an OWF are compared with simulation results in PSCAD EMTDC and DigSILENT Power Factory, where a user-defined model of the vacuum circuit breaker (VCB) is included, capable of simulating multiple prestrikes during the closing operation. An analysis of the switching transients that might occur in an OWF will be made on basis of the validated model and the importance of the inclusion of a sufficient accurate representation of the VCB in the simulation tool will be described. The inclusion of the VCB model in PSCAD greatly improves the simulation results, whereas little improvement is found in DigSILENT.