Offshore Wind Farm Black Start Service Integration: Review and Outlook of Ongoing Research

Daniela Pagnani,Claus Leth Bak,Frede Blaabjerg,Łukasz H Kocewiak,Jesper Hjerrild,Filipe Miguel Faria Da Silva

doi:10.3390/en13236286

Abstract

A review of the ongoing research on black start (BS) service integrated with offshore wind farms (OWFs) is presented in this paper. The overall goal is to firstly gain a better understanding of the BS capabilities required by modern power systems. Subsequently, the challenges faced by OWFs as novel BS service providers as well as an outlook on the ongoing research which may provide solutions to these are presented. OWFs have the potential to be a fast and environmentally friendly technology to provide BS services for power system restoration and, therefore, to ensure resiliency after blackouts. As a power electronic-based system, OWFs can be equipped with a self-starter in the system in order to perform BS. The self-start unit could be a synchronous generator (SG) or a power electronic unit such as a grid-forming (GFM) converter. Preliminary BS studies performed in PSCAD/EMTDC are presented in a simplified OWF system via an SG as the self-start unit. Consequently, technical challenges during the BS procedure in an OWF benchmark system are outlined via theoretical discussions and simulations results. This is useful to understand the threats to power electronics during BS. Finally, the most relevant GFM strategies in the state-of-the-art literature are presented and their application to OWF BS is discussed.

Highlights

Recent developments in modern power systems have been characterised by the gradual replacement of conventional generation, using mainly synchronous generators (SGs), with renewable-based generation interfaced by power electronic converters
The energisation sequence is made up of steps in which breakers close to energise the part of the offshore wind farms (OWFs) once the previous part has reached steady-state conditions
A discussion on the need for careful selection of a self-start unit needs to be carefully given as an OWF during black start (BS) goes through a series of switching transients, inrush currents, system resonance, and overvoltages

Summary

Introduction

Recent developments in modern power systems have been characterised by the gradual replacement of conventional generation, using mainly synchronous generators (SGs), with renewable-based generation interfaced by power electronic converters. This has resulted in new challenges with the resiliency and planning of operations. Offshore wind is projected to increase substantially in the decades, with the total installed capacity growing from 23 GW in 2018 to 228 GW in 2030 and almost 1000 GW in 2050 [1]. Power system resiliency is a concept that has emerged in the last decades. A relevant example is the South Australian blackout on 28 September 2016, which was a large-scale power outage resulting from storm damage to the transmission network.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion