Electrical Infrastructure & System Integration

Developing reliable and cost-effective electric power components and system solutions to enable profitable large-scale deployment of offshore wind energy in the North Sea.

Work Package 3 is led by Marte Gammelsæter from SINTEF Energy Research and Magnus Korpås from NTNU. Its focus areas are electric power components and system integration of wind energy (WE).

Anticipated results:

  • Reliable and cost-efficient electric power components for
    energy collection
  • Optimised electrical architectures and operational solutions
    for cost- and energy-efficient grid connection
Marte Gammelsæter

Hypothesis

Large-scale offshore wind power can be collected, transmitted and integrated in existing electrical
power systems in a cost-efficient and reliable manner.

Methodology and research tasks

Infrastructure

AC-based export systems, thermal-electrical cable models, subsea substations, new component design, models for degradation and lifetime assessment.

System integration

Development of a framework for transient analysis and stability assessment of large hybrid AC/DC power systems offshore, advanced ancillary services provision from WFs, models to identify economically robust offshore grid configurations and improved legal and regulatory framework.

Innovations

Main results from 2022

Electrical infrastructure

  • Conference paper on electro-thermal cable models published in Journal of Physics: Conference Series
  • Conference paper on power electronics converters and architecture for modular HVDC wind generators published in POWERCON
  • Journal paper on steel armour modelling submitted to IEEE Trans. Power Delivery
  • Conference paper on models for degradation and lifetime assessment submitted to EERA DeepWind 2023
  • Two spin-off projects: KSP SeaConnect and KSP NewLifT

System integration

  • Conference paper on models to identify economically robust offshore grid configurations submitted to EERA DeepWind 2023
  • Journal paper on advanced ancillary services provision from wind farms submitted to the IEEE journal
  • Conference paper on market challenges for 100% renewable power systems submitted to the International conference on the European energy market (EEM22)
  • Newspaper op-ed on “30 GW wind power timeseries analysis” (Dagens Næringsliv – article in Norwegian)
  • Memo on Small-Signal State-Space Model MATLAB tool for interconnected AC/MTDC grids completed (in-kind from MODULATOR)

Previous results

Electrical infrastructure

  • PhD candidate working on “Power electronics architecture and control methods for a HVDC generator for offshore wind”.
  • Abstract submitted on electro-thermal cable models, full paper to be submitted in 2022.
  • Memo on models for degradation and lifetime assessment, paper to be submitted in 2022.
  • PhD candidate working on “Novel Modular HVDC Generator for Offshore Wind” (associated with NorthWind but financed through other sources).

System integration

  • PhD candidate working on “Energy storage for grid services in HVDC connected offshore wind farms”.
  • Memo on models to identify economically robust offshore grid configurations, paper to be submitted in 2022.
  • Report on “Design and Operation of Energy Systems with Large Amounts of Variable Generation” (IEA Task 25).
  • Newspaper op-ed on Three prerequisites for Norwegian offshore wind success
    (Dagens Næringsliv – the article is in Norwegian).

 

 
Figure outlining how a virtual synchronous machine can be integrated to a wind turbine to allow it to provide ancillary services to the power system.
A virtual synchronous machine (VSM) is a common implementation scheme to provide grid forming capabilities and synthetic inertia.