Offshore wind power offers a viable solution to the challenge of reducing fossil fuel dependency. However, certain offshore wind projects encounter challenges in meeting expected returns, particularly over the medium to long term. This study addresses the discrepancy between assumed and actual cost behaviors in techno-economic assessments of wind farm projects. The present study evaluates their impact of operational loss trends (eg increased failure rates, aging, potential curtailment) on project viability through a comprehensive techno-economic assessment. To this end, key metrics including Net Present Value and Levelized Cost of Energy, complemented by stochastic analyzes are explored through Monte Carlo Simulation and sensitivity analysis. Results indicate that costs may exceed those of the reference scenario by up to 21.6% in the worst-case scenario, highlighting the critical need for proactive monitoring and management of operational losses.
In the current transition of power industry from conventional sources to renewable energy sources, wind power generation is becoming one of the key sources of electrical energy. Although the development of wind power plants (WPPs) has made a significant contribution to addressing the demand for clean and cheap energy, the integration of large-scale WPPs introduces a series of technical challenges to power system operations. These challenges involved control, protection, and adherence to specified power quality standards. Particularly, power quality plays a vital role in utility systems and industries having direct technical and economic impact on both power consumers and suppliers. To tackle such issues, various grid codes have been initiated by regulation authorities. Moreover, different ancillary devices and control approaches have been adopted to comply with the established grid code. This article aims to review the state-of-the-art research and progress, while considering the main challenges related to dynamic performance and power quality enhancement of emerging grid-forming wind power plants. Various topologies of wind energy conversion systems (WECSs) are examined and compared, and their control strategies are investigated. A comprehensive review on power quality and dynamic response issues caused by large-scale wind power integration is presented. Moreover, the evolving grid code requirements for grid-connected WPPs in most leading countries including Denmark, U.K., Australia, Germany, and the USA are analyzed and compared. Furthermore, the improvement approaches proposed in the literature are investigated and classified on different basis and their pros and cons are discussed. A brief discussion on the solutions and future directions is presented. Finally, some conclusive considerations about the overall study are provided.
The increasing role of offshore wind power plants in the electricity generation mix in Turkey raises some critical grid operation issues. In this context, the grid code regulation concerning the penetration of large-scale offshore wind power plants into Turkey's power system has become a prominent factor in the development of a reliable grid operation. In this paper, a comprehensive benchmark for grid codes of the European countries that have large-scale offshore wind power plants and Turkey is performed by considering voltage regulation, frequency regulation, fault ride-through, and power quality features. The compatibility of the grid codes in terms of the minimum technical requirements is discussed to show the pros and cons. An elaborate assessment of the Turkish grid code reveals the technical properties that need to be improved. The rigorous state-of-the-art review indicates that active power control & frequency regulation, reactive power control & voltage regulation, and voltage ride-through capabilities should be clarified in detail for the Turkish grid code. With this background, various recommendations, key challenges, and future trends related to the improvement of technical requirements for the Turkish grid code for the integration of offshore wind power plants are highlighted to help researchers, plant owners, and system operators.
In this paper, the impacts of large-scale OWPPs penetration on the Turkish power system are addressed. The grid compliance analyzes for the large-scale OWPP integration are carried out by using the grid connection criteria defined in the Turkish grid code. PV and QV curves are obtained to assess the effect of OWPP on the static voltage stability limit. Eight scenarios are conducted to analyze the effect of the OWPP on the static and dynamic characteristics of the power grid. To observe the large-scale OWPP impact on the voltage and frequency stability, transient events such as the outage of conventional power plants and three-phase to ground faults are applied. The results of the voltage and frequency stability analysis reveal that the Turkish grid remains stable after the integration of an 1800 MW OWPP. Furthermore, the Turkish system remains stable even in the event of an outage of the international transmission lines to Bulgaria and Greece.
The share of renewables in the power system is increasing rapidly. Large offshore wind power plants (OWPPs) are developed at a high pace and conventional fossil fuel-based plants are decommissioned. If the OWPP gets islanded due to any contingency or in the event of a blackout, the whole OWPP will be shutdown. This paper proposes a STATCOM with a battery storage that is located at the point of common connection to an OWPP to enable OWPP energization from a fully discharged state to operate in islanded mode. The STATCOM functionality provides fast and dynamic reactive power management and the battery unit provides active power balancing capability to regulate the frequency in the island. The concept is demonstrated through time-domain simulations on an OWPP model in PSCAD. The results confirm the technical feasibility of the system.
The levelized costs of energy (LCoE) of wave power is still not fully competitive with other sources of renewable energy. However, wave energy is partly in a different phase than other renewable energy types and could thus contribute to a better predictability and smoothed power output. This work focuses on co-location of wave and wind power by investigating the intermittency of wind and waves power based on measured historical data from several hundreds of locations worldwide. Employing wind power curves and wave power matrices, the sites are evaluated based on several different metrics. The results indicate that there are several spots where wave power has a much lower intermittency than wind power providing reliable energy supply. Best sites for co-location in terms of energy yield were found in North-Western Europe. However, both wind and wave production have the same seasonal variability in these sites. Only a handful of sites found in California showed the possibility of seasonal power smoothing using the combination of wind and wave.
The share of renewables in the power system is increasing rapidly. Large offshore wind power plants (OWPPs) are developed at a high pace and conventional fossil fuel-based plants are decommissioned. Consequently, there will be a risk of insufficient amount of power plants providing black start functionality for system restoration after a black out. This paper proposes a STATCOM with a battery energy storage that is located at the point of common connection to an OWPP that together can provide a reliable black start service to the power grid. The concept is demonstrated by using time domain simulations in PSCAD. The STATCOM functionality provides fast and dynamic reactive power management and the battery unit provides active power balancing capability to maintain the frequency within a tolerable range specified by the system operator. The simulation results fulfill the success criteria for the black start and confirm its feasibility for practical implementation.
This paper investigates the challenges associated with remote harmonic compensation in offshore wind power plants through long cables and transformers. The interaction between the grid network and the wind power plant network can lead to the amplification of certain harmonics and potentially resonant conditions. Hence, the plant developer is required to maintain the harmonic distortion at the point of common coupling within the planning level limits using harmonic compensation, which is usually done by static filters. In this paper an active damping compensation strategy with a STATCOM using emulation of using emulation of resistance at the harmonic frequencies of concern is analyzed. Finally the results are demonstrated using time domain simulations in PSCAD.
When an offshore wind power plant is connected to the grid, there is a risk of amplification of certain harmonics and appearance resonances at the point of connection due to the interaction between the grid network and the wind power plant network. Hence, the plant developer is obliged to maintain the harmonic distortion at the point of common coupling within the planning level limits using harmonic compensation, which is usually done by passive filters. In this paper a novel active harmonic compensation technique using voltage feedback from a non-local bus has been proposed and analyzed. Its effectiveness has been demonstrated through real time simulations on a test system model.
Due to the presence of long high voltage cable networks, and power transformers for the grid connection, the offshore wind power plants (OWPPs) are susceptible to harmonic distortion and resonances. The grid connection of OWPP should not cause the harmonic distortion beyond the permissible limits at the point of common coupling (PCC). The resonance conditions should be avoided in all cases.
This paper describes the harmonic analysis techniques applied on an OWPP network model. A method is proposed to estimate the harmonic current compensation from a shunt-connected active power filter to mitigate the harmonic voltage distortion at the PCC. Finally, the harmonic distortions in the compensated and the uncompensated systems are compared to demonstrate the effectiveness of the compensation.