Large offshore Wind Harmonics Mitigation
Harmonics are distortions of the sinusoidal grid voltage and current. High harmonics levels are undesirable as these can cause energy losses, tripping of protection systems and potentially premature component failure.
Modern wind farms include large numbers of power electronics converters that produce harmonics while these converters are also sensitive to these disturbances. Also, long offshore cables connected to the onshore grid may cause resonant overvoltages.
These problems can be solved, however today’s design approach is on a case-by-case basis with oversized components, which has already lead to delays and price increase and also holds risks related to future offshore grid extensions for additional wind farms.
Project impact: The project consortium recognizes this and together will work towards a more standardized and future-proof and cost-effective design approach.This design approach will increase the reliability and efficiency of offshore wind and thereby forms an important contribution to accelerate the energy transition and reduce integration costs.
The project will result in:
- Increased knowledge on harmonics phenomena
- Design methodology to mitigate adverse effects of harmonics
- Interface requirements for offshore and onshore grid connection
- Measurement requirements for validation purposes
- Best practices for standardization purposes
The project consortium includes stakeholders and R&D parties:
- TenneT TSO: Responsible for grid connection of the offshore wind farms in the Netherlands and Germany.
- CG Power Systems: Supplier of electrical high-voltage equipment, such as transformers for the TenneT platforms and harmonics filters.
- Energy Solutions: High-voltage engineering and consultancy firm with considerable experience in offshore wind.
- Research parties: Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology and ECN, who will analyze harmonics issues and develop the new wind farm design approach.
The project is coordinated by ECN and is supported by RvO, under the TKI Wind op Zee program.
Supervisor:
Dr.ir. Zian Qin: Z.Qin-2@tudelft.nl
Promotor:
Prof.dr.ir. Pavol Bauer: P.Bauer@tudelft.nl