Abstract
There is a global focus on adding renewable energy sources to the mix of energy supplies. In this study, the grid connections for large-scale offshore wind farms in areas that have high penetration of renewable energy sources were examined. System strength evaluation considering the interaction of wind farms and inverter-based resources (IBRs) was performed; the fault current was then analyzed to determine their contribution to the total fault current at a bus level. These studies revealed that the interaction between offshore wind farms and IBRs may make the power system weaker, and it is possible that fault current contributions from offshore wind farms can violate the capacity limit of existing circuit breakers. The results of steady-state analysis were verified through case studies focused on the southwest area of the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) system where large-scale offshore wind farms are planned to be established and connected. Power system planners will benefit from the results of this study with a better understanding of the factors to consider when integrating large-scale wind farms in areas with high penetration of renewables.
Highlights
Large-scale offshore wind farms have the potential to make a significant impact on the future development of carbon-free power systems [1]
Preliminary research developed a novel index of interaction level short circuit ratio (IILSCR) that reflects the actual interactions among inverter-based resources (IBRs) for the assessment of system strength using the power tracing strategy [18]
The results of the system strength evaluation when offshore wind farms of different sizes and locations are connected to the southwest area of the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) system are presented using the short-circuit capacity (SCC) before connection of the IBRs; PIBR is the output of each IBR at each bus
Summary
Large-scale offshore wind farms have the potential to make a significant impact on the future development of carbon-free power systems [1]. It is recognized that the growing connections of large-scale offshore wind farms to the mainland provide challenges in terms of planning the transmission system [2,3,4]. The transmission network with offshore wind generation can have issues such as low system strength and variation of fault current due to the converter technologies. Such instability is related to the reduction of short-circuit capacity provided by synchronous generators. Synchronous generators are key elements for maintaining the voltage stability of the system by providing the contribution to the short-circuit capacity
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