Design of a novel modular energy conversion scheme for DC offshore wind farms

Offshore wind farms provide benefits over onshore farms in terms of the amount of generated energy and environmental impact. Cost efficient energy transmission is one of the challenges of those installations. In this context direct connection of parallel connected DC wind turbines to the transmission line is a promising solution. Modular DC-DC converters are an attractive solution for the direct connection of the DC wind turbines to the transmission line. In addition, the phase-shifted full-bridge converter (PSFB) is a good candidate to form simple, efficient and reliable high voltage modular DC-DC converters for offshore DC networks. This paper proposes a novel energy conversion scheme for the direct connection of the DC wind turbines to the transmission line. Design criteria for the phase-shifted full-bridge converter and the medium frequency transformer are described and a modular energy conversion scheme is sized to operate with 10MW offshore wind turbines and 300kV transmission voltage.

[1]  Torbjorn Thiringer,et al.  Field-Experience Based Root-Cause Analysis of Power-Converter Failure in Wind Turbines , 2015, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics.

[2]  Himanshu J. Bahirat,et al.  An All-DC Offshore Wind Farm With Series-Connected Turbines: An Alternative to the Classical Parallel AC Model? , 2013, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics.

[3]  Barry W. Williams,et al.  Analysis, comparison and selection of DC-DC converters for a novel modular energy conversion scheme for DC offshore wind farms , 2015, IEEE EUROCON 2015 - International Conference on Computer as a Tool (EUROCON).

[4]  W. Marsden.  I and J , 2012 .

[5]  Irma Villar,et al.  Multiphysical Characterization of Medium-Frequency Power Electronic Transformers , 2010 .

[6]  Jiuping Pan Sandeep Bala.  DC Connection of Offshore Wind Power Plants without Platform , 2014 .

[7]  B. W. Williams,et al.  Power Electronics: Devices, Drivers, Applications and Passive Components , 1992 .

[8]  J. Barrena,et al.  Energy Transmission and Grid Integration of AC Offshore Wind Farms , 2012 .

[9]  Lena Max,et al.  Design and control of a DC collection grid for a wind farm , 2009 .

[10]  Stefan Lundberg.  Wind Farm Configuration and Energy Efficiency Studies - Series DC versus AC Layouts , 2006 .

[11]  Guangfu Tang,et al.  Evaluation of losses in VSC-HVDC transmission system , 2008, 2008 IEEE Power and Energy Society General Meeting - Conversion and Delivery of Electrical Energy in the 21st Century.

[12]  Thomas Ackermann,et al.  Loss evaluation of HVAC and HVDC transmission solutions for large offshore wind farms , 2006 .

[13]  Md. Rabiul Islam,et al.  A review of offshore wind turbine nacelle : Technical challenges , research and development , 2015 .

[14]  Conversion and delivery of electrical energy in the 21st century , 2008, 2008 IEEE Power and Energy Society General Meeting - Conversion and Delivery of Electrical Energy in the 21st Century.

[15]  Jianguo Zhu,et al.  A review of offshore wind turbine nacelle: Technical challenges, and research and developmental trends , 2014 .

[16]  J. W. Kolar,et al.  Optimized design of medium frequency transformers with high isolation requirements , 2010, IECON 2010 - 36th Annual Conference on IEEE Industrial Electronics Society.

[17]  Thomas Ackermann,et al.  Wind Power in Power Systems , 2005 .

[18]  Asier Garcia Bediaga.  Optimal Design of Medium Frequency High Power Converters , 2014 .