Scientists from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) have created a new control system for wind turbines in offshore wind farms which enables power transmission to the coast in a more flexible way than current solutions.
This solution allows the use of a diode rectifier station in the offshore platform of a high voltage direct current (HVDC) link. As a result, the wind turbines alternating current (AC) can be converted into direct current (DC) for the HVDC transmission.
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The scientists have also developed a distributed control system which synchronises and regulates the electrical voltage and frequency of the wind turbines of the offshore wind farm. This allows the transmission of energy to the general network through a HVDC link with a diode rectifier station.
This new system synchronises the wind turbines without using any additional element, since it uses the wind turbines’ capacity to contribute to voltage and frequency control. A key aspect of the project is the use of diode rectifier stations, which reduces the cost of the offshore rectifier platform by up to 30%.
Because many large offshore wind farms planned are far from the coast, a connection using HVDC links is technically and economically more suitable than a HVAC transmission system, the university said.
