Wind2DC: Medium Voltage DC Power Take Off Technologies for Floating Offshore Wind Turbine Energy Conversion and Collection Systems

Wind2DC：用于浮式海上风力发电机能量转换和收集系统的中压直流取电技术

• 批准号: EP/X035867/1
• 负责人: Alasdair McDonald
• 金额: $ 116.41万
• 依托单位: University of Edinburgh
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FX035867%2F1
• 关键词: Wind2DC; Medium; Voltage; DC; Power

The Wind2DC project will develop co-designed mechanical and electrical novel power take off systems for offshore wind-turbines that will these wind-turbines to be directly connected to a medium voltage dc (MVDC) collector system, as opposed to the ac collector systems that are current used. This will help exploit the full potential of offshore floating wind by: (1) reducing system costs, (2) Increasing the feasible size of offshore wind-farms, and (3) alleviate expected issues with dynamic cabling that will arise in floating wind-turbines. This supports the UK commitment to Net Zero by 2050 by enabling access to a large fraction of the estimated 4 TW of energy that is accessible from offshore wind. The project is strongly supported by industry, including Siemens Energy, Clas-SiC, JDR Cables, SSE Renewables.Floating Offshore Wind Turbine technology has the potential to unlock wind resources in offshore areas in which it is unfeasible to use conventional fixed-bottom turbine structures. This would provide a significant increase in exploitable offshore wind resources, with higher capacity factors than onshore or fixed-bottom offshore wind resources. The European floating wind resource has been estimated at 4 TW, a large share of which is located off Scotland and the south-west of England. To date, all offshore wind-farms have utilised ac electrical collection systems (in which the voltages and currents oscillate) to gather the power from each wind-turbine in the farm together before it is transmitted back onshore. In wind-farms close to shore, this transmission is also done using an ac system. in wind-farms that are far offshore the power is usually converted to dc (in which the voltages and currents are steady values) and transmitted back onshore through a High Voltage dc (HVDC) transmission line. Such systems require power-electronic converters to change the power from the wind-farm between ac and dc on both ends of the HVDC line. The advantage of dc systems is that the amount of conductors within the transmission cables is substantially reduced and, unlike ac transmission systems, there is no feasible limit on the length of the transmission system.Floating offshore wind-turbines devices require dynamic collection network cabling that can withstand the movement of the floating offshore wind-turbine platforms. In waters deeper than 100m it is difficult to fix the array cables to the seabed, leading to proposals in which the entire cable collection network is also floated. For such propositions a move to a Medium Voltage DC collection (MVDC) network, rather than a conventional ac collection network, would bring substantial benefits in reducing the weight of the cables themselves, as well as increasing their flexibility due to the reduction in conductor sizes need for a given power rating when moving from ac to dc. One of the main barriers to realising these MVDC collection networks is the unavailability of wind-turbine power-take off systems that are compatible with a high-power MVDC network voltages (expected to be in the region of 100 kilovolts plus).The Wind2DC project will focus on developing light-weight efficient power take off systems for Offshore Wind Turbines, providing a direct MVDC transmission compatible voltage output from each offshore wind-turbine, addressing the issue of cost-effective collection architectures, and enabling large scale offshore wind-turbines arrays with floating dynamic cabling. To do this the project will exploit novel generator, generator interface converter and dc-dc converter designs, with a focus on collaborative co-design of each of these aspects between the university teams that make up the project. To achieve this the researchers will exploit the potential next-generation wide bandgap semiconductors, which offer substantially increased voltage ratings as well as reduced switching losses, and novel modular electrical generator designs.

Wind2DC项目将为海上风力涡轮机开发共同设计的机械和电气新颖的动力输出系统，这些风力涡轮机将直接连接到中压直流（MVDC）收集器系统，而不是当前使用的交流收集器系统。这将有助于通过以下方式充分发挥海上浮动风电的潜力：（1）降低系统成本，（2）增加海上风电场的可行规模，以及（3）缓解浮动风力发电机中动态布线的预期问题。这支持了英国到 2050 年实现净零排放的承诺，使人们能够从海上风电获得估计为 4 TW 的能源中的很大一部分。该项目得到了西门子能源、Clas-SiC、JDR Cables、SSE Renewables等业界的大力支持。浮动式海上风力发电机技术有潜力释放海上地区的风力资源，而在这些地区，传统的固定底部风力发电机结构是不可行的。这将显着增加可开发的海上风电资源，其容量系数高于陆上或固定底部海上风电资源。欧洲浮动风资源估计为 4 TW，其中很大一部分位于苏格兰附近和英格兰西南部。迄今为止，所有海上风电场都使用交流电力收集系统（其中电压和电流振荡）来收集风电场中每个风力涡轮机的电力，然后将其传输回陆上。在靠近海岸的风电场中，这种传输也是使用交流系统完成的。在离岸较远的风电场中，电力通常会转换为直流电（其中电压和电流均为稳定值）并通过高压直流 (HVDC) 输电线路传回岸上。此类系统需要电力电子转换器在高压直流输电线路两端将风电场的电力在交流和直流之间进行转换。直流系统的优点是传输电缆内的导体数量大大减少，并且与交流传输系统不同，传输系统的长度没有可行的限制。浮动海上风力涡轮机设备需要能够承受浮动海上风力涡轮机平台移动的动态采集网络布线。在深度超过100m的水域中，很难将阵列电缆固定在海底，因此有人提出将整个电缆收集网络也漂浮起来。对于此类建议，转向中压直流收集 (MVDC) 网络（而不是传统的交流收集网络）将带来显着的好处，即减轻电缆本身的重量，并提高电缆的灵活性，因为从交流转向直流时，给定额定功率所需的导体尺寸会减小。实现这些 MVDC 收集网络的主要障碍之一是缺乏与高功率 MVDC 网络电压（预计在 100 kV 以上区域）兼容的风力涡轮机取力系统。Wind2DC 项目将专注于为海上风力涡轮机开发轻型高效取力系统，为每个海上风力涡轮机提供直接 MVDC 传输兼容的电压输出 风力涡轮机，解决具有成本效益的收集架构问题，并通过浮动动态布线实现大规模海上风力涡轮机阵列。为此，该项目将利用新颖的发电机、发电机接口转换器和 DC-DC 转换器设计，重点是组成该项目的大学团队之间各个方面的协作协同设计。为了实现这一目标，研究人员将利用潜在的下一代宽带隙半导体，该半导体可大幅提高额定电压并降低开关损耗，以及新颖的模块化发电机设计。