1 2010 International Conference on Power System Technology

Construction and Operational Properties of Offshore Wind Farm Power Generation System with Self-Commuted HVDC Transmission
Guohong Wu, Member, IEEE, Yuya.Tohbai , Non-member, and Tomoyuki Takahashi , Non-member

Abstract As one of the renewable and clean energy resources, wind power is attracting considerable attentions and becoming most developing renewable energy resources due to its large unit capacity, etc. This paper make an basic approach to the construction of offshore wind farm power generation system, which is considered to be a promising way to increase the practical utilization of wind power. In this paper, the concepts of prediction of offshore wind data from measured land wind data, the basic construction of wind farm, the design of wind power transmission circuit and the control of various power equipments for an offshore wind farm generation system, are dealt with and presented. With this proposed system, a self-commutated HVDC transmission system is adopted to transmit wind power from offshore to the power grid on land. As a result of simulation study with an one-machine infinite bus power system model on PSCAD/EMTDC platform, the electrical characteristics of the proposed offshore wind power generation system are illustrated and its operational properties are verified. Index TermsRenewable energy, Wind Power, Wind farm, Offshore Wind, HVDC, Self-Commuted, Simulation, Power Stability, Operational property, PSCAD/EMTDC

long with the increasing concerns of the global warming A issues and the fossils resource exhaustion, renewable energy generation is paid great attentions and expected to introduce rapidly in the near future into the existing power grid both at the transmission network and at the distribution side with various types and different scales. Among these renewable energy generations, wind power generation has several good properties such as environmental friendly, large unit capacity, easy to develop large scale generation farm, etc., which lead to a relatively lower generation cost and be competitive with the conventional generating resources, and therefore is considered as the most promising alternative
Guohong Wu and Tomoyuki Takahashi are with the Department of Electrical Engineering & Information Technology, the Faculty of Engineering, Tohoku Gakuin University. 1-13-1, Chuo, Tagajyo, Miyagi-ken, 985-8537, Japan. (e-mail:wugh@tjcc.tohoku-gakuin.ac.jp) Yuya.Tohbai is with the Hokutaku co., Ltd at Renewable Energy Service Department. 5-8-16, Kyokusin-1jou, Asahikawa city, Hokkaido, 0788371, Japan. 978-1-4244-5940-7/10/$26.002010 IEEE

I. INTRODUCTION

energy resource. However, some major technical problems such as geographical and electrical restrictions exist to obstruct the further increase of wind power introduction capacity in some areas of the world: one of these problems is the anxiety to degrade of power quality while large amounts of wind powers are introduced into a relatively week power network, and the other is that few suitable sites can be found for building large land wind farms. E.g. in Japan, 70% of land is covered by mountainous and there are not many plain fields, and for this reason, only a few suitable sites with stably blowing wind can be found for building large scale land wind farms. Furthermore, most of the suitable sites for wind farm are in remote area where power system network is away from the major, and the power network in that area is generally fragile to sustain the power fluctuation caused by the large scale wind power generations. For this reasons, in order to increase further utilization of wind energy, offshore wind farm is considered the best and the only choice for future development of wind power generation for those counties like Japan. Up to now, the development of offshore wind power is attracting considerable attentions and several offshore wind farm projects have already been completed or under [1][2] construction . However, for such kind of complicated system, many works are considered need to be further studied and clarified, e.g. an adequate construction and proper control of this system could be extremely necessary. However, so far, few studies related to these concepts have been presented yet. The power output from wind turbine generators is significantly influenced by the wind velocity and hence fluctuating considerably. Moreover, the transmission loss occurs because it needs to transmit power through a long distance by submarine cable from the offshore power generating site to the land. With these facts in mind, in this work, we have made an approach to the construction of the offshore wind power generation system and examined its operating properties by taking consideration of the following aspects: (1) Selection of the best location suitable for building offshore wind farm (2) Preparation of offshore wind data (3) Identification of the difference of wind speed and power generation between the land wind and offshore wind (4) Structure of an offshore wind power generation system (5) Appropriate power transmission circuits for power

transmission from offshore to land (6) Basic design of the transmission circuits and its control system (7) Verification of the basic operational properties of the designed system Since there are almost not measured data of offshore wind can be found open to public, the prediction of offshore wind velocity based on the measured land wind data is first completed, and then, the generation power of an offshore wind turbine generator is investigated and compared with that of the land wind. And an offshore wind power generation system with self-commuted HVDC transmission circuit is proposed and simulation studies are conducted with this proposed system model and one-machine infinite bus power system model by use of PSCAD/EMTDC. The electrical characteristics of the proposed offshore wind power generation system and its operational properties are examined and verified in this work. II. PROPERTIES OF OFFSHORE WIND POWER GENERATION Compared with the land wind farm, offshore wind farm has the advantages of: Easy to find suitable sites. One of the geographical problems for increasing land wind power generation capacity may be that a few suitable sites can be obtained. In some countries like Japan, there are not much plain fields like Europe where many suitable sites can be found for building large scale land wind farms. On the other hand, since being surrounded by oceans, there exist many good sites for offshore wind farms. Excellent wind profile. Wind profile is an extremely important issue. Since land wind is strongly influenced by those obstructions on the land, normally its condition is not so good, e.g. containing sharp fluctuation, giving lower power output on account of containing too much extremely low wind velocity, etc. Whereas offshore wind condition is considerably better, because it is flat on the surface of the sea and there are few obstacles. Satisfactory economical effects can be expected from offshore wind generation. The scale and capacity of wind farm can be determined with large flexibility and easy to be expanded whenever it is necessary in the future with little limitation. And, compared with land wind power generation and other renewable energy generations such as PV generation, better generation performance (stable, higher generating efficiency and low cost) can be obtained. Furthermore, the stable wind condition may also bring about a decrease in the investment in other fluctuation suppressing devices (e.g. large capacity energy storage device, etc). III. PREDICTION OF OFFSHORE DATA Because it is hardly to obtain some measured offshore wind data open to public, offshore wind data need to be properly created for conducting simulation study in this work. For this

purpose, land wind profile data measured by wind generation field test program by NEDO (New Energy and Industrial [3] Technology Development Organization, Japan) is adopted and properly modified to offshore wind data. A. Selection of Suitable Location Refers to a simulation research result of an offshore wind [4] map by Dr. A. Yamaguchi , we decide to use the measured data by NEDO project at measuring point of the coast near Chousi city, Chiba Prefecture, which locates in the south-east of Japan facing Pacific Ocean. This decision is based on the following consideration referring to the results of [4]: (1) The surface of the sea around the coast of Chousi city is one of the places where the strongest offshore wind is flowing, and could be inferred as a good candidate location for building offshore wind power farm. Taking consideration that the offshore wind farm may be away from the coast somehow so as to obtain better wind condition, it is inferred that offshore wind farm may be located on the surface of the sea with a distance of around 30km away from the coast of Chousi city. (2) At the point of Chousi city, the wind from northwest direction (land side) prevails in February and is therefore called Land Wind, and in June, the wind from southwest direction (Pacific Ocean side) prevails and is called Offshore [5] Wind . According to this fact, it is thought that the comparison between offshore wind and land wind at this point is relatively reasonable and reliable since we can actually have both of these winds at the same point. (3) The power system network is relatively strong enough to withstand the impact of fluctuation that may be caused by large scale wind power generation. B. Selection of Time Duration of Wind Data The land wind data in 2000 measured by NEDO project is used because there was not any abnormal weather condition reported at this year according to the statistics of Japan Meteorological Bureau. The measured land wind data at Chousi Coast in June, 2000 is adopted to predict the offshore wind profile, because it is noticed by the same project that in this season, the wind is mainly flowing from Pacific Ocean direction and be considered to have the same wind profile as offshore wind. And, for making comparison, land wind data in February, 2000 at the same point is selected, since the wind is reported [5] mainly coming from the land during this time period . C. Modification of Land wind Data to Offshore Wind Data The land wind data from NEDO project is measured at the coast and the measuring point is with a height of 20 meters from sea-surface. However, the future offshore wind farm are supposed to be 30km offshore from the coast in this study and those turbine generators are considered to be at least 2MW classes with tower height of nearly 80 meters. Thus, the measured land wind data need be modified to offshore wind in two ways: firstly, from 20m height to 80m height, and then from the coast to 30km offshore.

Modification of wind data considering tower height difference The following expression gives the wind data with [6] different height . 1

speed zone. On the other hand, offshore wind speed seems considerably flat and with less fluctuation. From this result, it can be said that in this case, offshore wind can gives larger and much stable wind power compared with land wind.

U =U

=Z
n

(1)

IV. CONSTRUCTION OF OFFSHORE WIND POWER GENERATION

i Z i

SYSTEM

Where, U and Ui are the wind speed at height Z and Zi respectively, and n is an exponential coefficient (7.0 is used in this study). Modification of wind data considering distance difference from the shore Offshore wind speed accelerates since it is not hindered against obstacles on the sea. Based on the statistical data, wind speed at the point of 30km offshore is considered to be 20% increasing from that of the coast at Chousi area. Based on the above modification, the wind data of offshore wind and land wind are obtained and be shown in Fig.1. For observing and comparing the wind properties, the standard deviation for both of these wind data is given in Fig.2 as well.
Wind Speed Profile

16 14 12 Wind Speed(m/s) 10 8 6 4 2 0 1 12 23 34

O ff Sho re

A typical structure of an offshore wind farm system can be with a structure shown in Fig.3. It may have dozens or even hundreds of wind turbine generators to obtain large capacity. These generators may be the type of IG (Induction Generator), DFIG (Double-feed Induction Generator) or SG (Synchronous Generator), and it is preferred that at least some of these generators are DFIGs or SGs. The generated wind power may be transmitted to the power system on land via an AC or DC transmission circuit. In this study, we advocate to utilize DC transmission on account of the following factors: DC transmission may have small transmission losses especially when the transmission line needs to use submarine cable for offshore wind generation farm. Easy to apply control to the voltages and transmission power by properly control of the conversion devices. And it is possible to mitigate the impact of wind power fluctuation on AC power system stability by coordinated control of the whole system. DC transmission circuits consists of a converter station at the sending offshore side including a conversion transformer and bridge circuits , a DC transmission circuit including DC filters and submarine DC cable, an inverter station at the receiving land side including a conversion transformer and bridge circuits. Switching devices for both of the converter and the inverter are assumed to use IGBTs modulated by PWM control.

Lan d

45 56 67 78 89 100 111 122 133 144 time(10minute)

Fig. 1. Land Wind and the Predicted Offshore Wind

Standard Stan d a rd D e Deviat v ate iion

10

2 .5

10

2
Deviation

Standard Deviation

2 .5 e 1 .5 at vi 2 e d
n o i t a vi De

10MW 30unit

1.5 1 0 .5 0 .5 0 0 1 1 12 12 23 23 34 45 56 67 34 45 56 67 1 1 1 22 133 14 4 1 1 1 22 133 14 4 Time (1 0 m n T me (1 0 min ute) ute) 78 78 1

Offshorl 7 eth Ju Offshore

y

10

=300MW

Land Land F e 16t h

66KV AC network DC 150 KV Bi- poler DCcable 30Km

89 100 1 89 100 1

66/ 300KV

300 / 154KV

Fig. 2. Standard Deviation of Land Wind and the Predicted Offshore Wind

From Fig.1 and Fig.2, the following facts can be known: Wind speed. Offshore wind speed is obviously stronger than that of land wind. In this case, a difference of 2.33 [m/s] on an average can be observed. Since the wind energy is the third power of wind speed, the energy obtained from offshore wind can be possibly 2.4 times of that of land wind. Standard deviation of wind speed. Standard deviation of land wind speed appears dramatically fluctuation in the high

Fig.3 Outline of a Typical Offshore Wind Farm System

V. SIMULATION RESULTS Digital simulations are conducted for two purposes: (1) to investigate the power generation from the offshore wind and identify its characteristics compared with the land wind power; (2) to verify the operational properties of the selfcommuted HVDC transmission system for transmitting offshore wind power to the land.

A. Wind Turbine Generator Parameters of wind turbine system are given in Table 1, and a synchronous generator is used with parameters tabulated in Table 2. The wind turbine has a pitch angle control system with rotational speed control function and generation power control function shown in Fig.4, and the generator has a standard IEEE AVR control with PSS function that is prepared in the simulation tool library.
TABLE I MAIN PARAMETERS OF OFFSHORE WIND TURBINE

DC Voltage Magnitude G1 1 + T1 S DC Voltage Refere nce Phase Angle of AC System

Signal Wave

PWM

Phase Angle

(a )
AC Voltage

Control Block for Converter

G
2

1 + T2S

Rotor Radius Rotor Area Air Density Coefficient of Gear Box Gear Proportion
TABLE II

40[m] 5026[] 1.229 0.97[p.u] 55

AC Voltage Reference

Active Power Output G3 1 + T3S Magnitude

Active Power Output Reference

MAIN PARAMETERS OF GENERATOR

Phase Angle of AC system Phase Angle of Inverter Output

Signal Wave Phase Angle

PWM

Rated Capacity [MVA] Rated Wind Speed [m/s] Rated Voltage [kV] Rated Current [kA] Xd [p.u.] Xd [p.u.] Xd [p.u.] Xq[p.u.] Xq [p.u.] Xq [p.u.] Ta [s]
ref m + KS KP Pref Pg + K1 s

2.0 12 0.23 2.895 0.920 0.300 0.220 0.510 0.228 0.290 0.332

b Control Blocks for Inverter Fig.5

Control Blocks for Self-commuted HVDC Circuit

In this simulation, the control parameters are set to be G1=10, T1=0.05, G2 =7, T2=0.05, G3 =100, T 3=0.1 C. Active Power from Wind Turbine Generator In order to compare the generation power between land wind and offshore wind, those wind data obtained in Fig.1 are used as the input wind data for the above-mentioned wind turbine generator respectively. In case without the activation of pitch angle control of wind turbine system, the active power output in case of offshore wind and land wind are shown in Fig.6.
Main : Gra h p s 3.00 2.50 2.00 Active Power[MW] 1.50 1.00 GP-LAND GP-OFFSHORE

GM

K4 s

Beta

Fig.4 Pitch Angle Control of Wind Turbine Generator

Where, Rotational speed [rad/s] ref Reference of [rad/s] Pref Reference of generation output [MW] Pg Generation output [MW] Beta Pitch angle [deg] Herein, coefficients is set as Kp=6.2, K1=6.2, Ks=0.05, Gm=30 and K4=0.1. B. Control Systems for DC Transmission Circuit Control Systems for DC Transmission Circuit are shown in Fig.5. DC voltage control is applied to the converter to keep

0.50 0.00 Time[s ] 0 25 50 75 100 15 2

DC voltage as constant, and AC voltage control + active power control are applied to the inverter to regulate the output voltage and active power from the DC transmission circuit.

Fig.6

Comparison of Generation Power in case of Offshore Wind and Land Wind

It can be seen from Fig.6 that the active power of wind turbine generator is obviously different. Offshore wind power output is considerably higher than that of land wind, with relatively less blasts and sharp fluctuation. Furthermore, in case of land wind during the time period of 24-52 second, since the wind velocity is lower than the rated cut-in speed, the generator does not generate power at that time duration, on the other hand, offshore wind power generator can operate

Active Power of Generator (pu)

continuously. From this result, it is known that the offshore wind power generation can be expected with higher stability and higher rate of operation that may lead to higher performance efficiency and better profitable effects. D. Operational Properties of Self-commuted HVDC Transmission System Since the purpose of this simulation is to identify whether the self-commuted HVDC system can work effectively, a simplified one machine infinite bus power system mode based on Fig.3 is considered in this study, which is shown in Fig.7. In this model, a group of 75 wind turbine generators given in Table II is simulated by one single machine and the cooperation of these generators does not appear and out of the problems of this study. By doing this way, we can concentrate our attentions on investigation of the operational properties of the self-commuted HVDC transmission circuit and its control systems. However, if we want to verify the cooperative control of the whole system, further complicated system model is considered necessary.

2 1.5 1 0.5 0

-0.5 -1

-1.5 -2 22 23 24 Time (s) 25 26 27

Fig.8 Active Power of Offshore Wind Turbine Generator (RMS)

Active Power from Inverter (pu) 2 1.5 1 0.5 0

-0.5 -1

Wind Power Generator

Synchronous Generator MW)

HVDC Transmission Circuit

DC line 30km 150 kV, 300MW

Power System

-1.5 -2 22 23 24 Time (s) 25 26 27

Wind

Tm Wind Wind Turbine Turbine

Ef 20/66kV 66 / AVDCR Control AVACR APR Control 300/ 154KV

Fig.9 Active Power from Inverter (RMS)

180 160 140
DC Voltage AC Voltage

300kV V Pitch Angel Excitation t An Excitatio Control Contro Control Contro Pg

Fig.7 Simplified System Model for Offshore Wind Power Generation

The offshore wind data in Fig.1 is used for this simulation study. The operational properties of the whole system are examined by supposing a 3LGO happens at the time of 24 second at the bus of AC power system. Under this condition, active power output of the offshore wind turbine generator and active power from the inverter to the AC system are shown in Fig.8 and Fig.9, respectively. The voltage curves of DC and AC side are given in Fig.10. These figures reveal the followings: Compared with the active power curve of wind turbine generator in Fig.6, active power in Fig.8 is obviously flat since the fluctuation of wind is mitigated by activating the pitch angle control. And the effectiveness of pitch angle control can be verified by this result as well. Nevertheless, it is seen that there is still an oscillation with considerable magnitude remained in the generation power. By Comparison the active power curve in Fig.8 with that in Fig.9, it is known that the active power from inverter becomes extremely stable and little fluctuation appears. And, observing the DC voltage in Fig.10, we know that the DC voltage can be stabilized by the converter control as well. These results confirm that the DC transmission circuit and its control systems are effectively working.

100 80 60 40 20 0 22 23 24 25 Time (s) 26 27

Fig.10 DC Voltage and AC Voltage of Inverter (RMS)

During the fault, the drop in AC voltage causes a variation in DC voltage and active powers. However, this variation converges rapidly after the fault is cleared. This result verifies that the whole system can operate stably even in case of disturbance occurs in the power system. VI. CONCLUSIONS

Among the various types of renewable energy generation, offshore wind power generation has the advantages of large capacity, excellent wind profile and high operation performance, etc., and is considered to be a promising way to increase the introduction of renewable energy generation, especially in that areas where few suitable sites can be obtained for land wind farms. In this paper, a basic approach to the construction and operational properties of the offshore wind power system have been made in order to provide a fundamental technique for facilitating the introduction of

V o lta g e ( k V)

120

offshore wind power generation. Based on the prediction of offshore wind data using the measured land wind data, a basic structure of this generation system with self-commuted HVDC transmission has been proposed and studied by conducting digital simulation. The simulation results of this study reveal the following facts: Offshore wind is stronger and stable than land wind; Power generation by offshore wind is considerably higher than that of the land wind, and relatively fewer blasts and sharp fluctuations appear; Self-commuted HVDC transmission has been verified to be able to enhance the system stability by mitigation of the fluctuation of both DC transmission circuit and AC system with properly designed control systems. And even in the case with serious contingency, the whole system has been verified to have the ability to keep continuous operation. As for the further work, control systems for self-commuted HVDC transmission system will be further discussed and the cooperation of the wind farm generators will be investigated.

VIII. BIOGRAPHIES
Guohong Wu (M1994, Ph.D 1998) was born in Tianjin, China, on Sept. 26, 1969. . He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Tianjin University, China in 1989 and 1994, respectively. In 1998, he received a jointsupervised Ph.D. degree from the University of Tokyo, Japan and Tianjin University, China. He was with the University of Tokyo, the Tohoku University, Japan from 1995 to 2004. He is currently an associate professor of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at the Tohoku Gakuin University, Japan. His research interests include the renewable energy & alternative generation technologies, power system stability analysis, FACTS devices, superconductivity application to power systems, HVDC systems, etc. He is a member of IEEE and IEE-Japan.

VII. REFERENCES
[1] The European Wind Energy Association : Delivering Offshore Wind Power in Europe, pp10-13, 2007 [2] Gerhard Gerdes, Albrecht Tiedemann, drs Sjoerd Zeelenberg : Case Study : European Offshore Wind Farms A Survey for Analysis of Experiences and Lessons Learnt by Developers of Offshore Wind Farms, Final Report, pp32-34, 2005 [3] The New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization WEB SITE: http://www.nedo.go.jp/ [4] Atsushi YAMAGUCHI, Takeshi ISHIHARA: An assessment of offshore wind energy potential using mesoscale model and geographic information system, Journal of Wind Engineering, JAWE Vol.32, No.2 (No.111), April 2007, pp63-76 (in Japanese) [5] The Fishery Cooperative Association of Chuosi City: A Report of Wind Power Generation Field Test Project at Chuosi Port. 2001. [6] Kenichi Tanomura, Junichi Arai, Yasuhiro Noro, Kikuo Takagi, Masakazu Kato: New Control for HVDC System Connected to Large Wind farm, IEEJ Trans. PE., Vol.126, No6, 2006, p619626 (in Japanese) [7] The New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization: Wind Power Generation Guidebook (ver.8). pp67-68, 2005 [8] Sea Breeze Olympic Converter, LP HVDC Light: Technical Background. URL : http://www.abb.com/hvdc.

Yuya Tohbai (B2007, M2009,) was born in Isinomaki in Japan, on February 1, 1985. He received the M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from Tohoku Gakuin University, Japan; He is currently working with the HOKUTAKU CO., LTD at Renewable Energy Service Department. His interests include the renewable energy generations. He is a member of IEE-Japan.

Tomoyuki Takahashi (B2010) was born in Shiroishi in Japan, on September 26, 1986. He received the B.S degree in Electrical Engineering from Tohoku Gakuin University, Japan; He is currently M.S. student at Tohoku Gakuin University, his research interest includes the areas of renewable energy power generation system.