Encyclopedia of Alternative and Renewable Energy
Volume 19 (AC Offshore Wind Farms)

The book aims at providing valuable information to the readers regarding AC offshore wind farms. It covers vital aspects of offshore wind farm's energy transmission and grid integration infrastructure. However, not all the electric configurations have been evaluated for this purpose. This book presents a representative case which has been comprehensively analyzed. It has been constructed on three general features of an offshore wind farm: the rated power, the distance to shore and the average wind speed of the place. Thus, after a concise account of concepts related to wind power and several subsea cable modeling options, an offshore wind farm has been modeled and its parameters have been defined to use as a case study. Upon this case study, several analyses of key aspects of connection infrastructure have been performed. The primary aspect to be determined was the management of reactive power flowing through the submarine cable. The much unwelcomed harmonic amplifications in offshore wind farms due to resonances and after this, transient over-voltage complications in electric framework have been characterized. Finally, an offshore wind farm connection infrastructure has been presented in order to meet the grid code requirements for a specific system operator, but not as a close solution, as a result of a methodology based on analysis and simulations to define the most appropriate layout depending on the size and location of each offshore wind farm.