Reliability-Oriented Assessment and Design Towards Energy system integration with offshore Renewables (ROADsTER)

未来的能量转换系统需要具有高可靠性和高效率。这在海上风电中尤为重要，因为这些系统的位置越来越偏远，维护成本越来越高，而且海上风电在英国未来能源方案中的份额越来越大。然而，作为在这些应用中产生受控电力的关键使能器的功率转换器被许多研究证明是这些系统中最脆弱的部分之一，并且是维护成本和停机时间的主要来源。为了提高海上风电场功率转换器的可靠性，必须能够在风电场级别对功率转换器的可靠性进行建模并进行优化。这项工作的关键假设是，通过对海上风电场功率转换器进行主动热管理，不仅将单个转换器纳入其中，而且还将由于尾流效应而导致的转换器之间的相互作用纳入其中，可以提高系统的总体可靠性并对其进行主动管理。例如，通过对部件进行智能降额（例如，转换器（涡轮机）的开关）或降额，其寿命消耗将减少，因此通过适当控制系统，将有可能将应力从应力较大的转换器转移到应力较小的转换器，并优化系统的总体可靠性并主动地对其进行管理。此外，例如，通过增加更多转换器可以继续其操作直到下一个计划的预防性维护的可能性，可以协调功率转换器的操作以用于最佳维护计划。因此，该项目提出了以下解决方案：（1）实时风电场水平评估和可靠性监测，以及（2）海上风电场中功率转换器的主动可靠性增强和寿命管理。重要的是要注意，由于尾流效应，给定风力涡轮机的互连操作，特定涡轮机的功率处理能力的降低不一定意味着所产生的总功率将降低，并且实际上它甚至可能增加。因此，本项目考虑在多目标优化问题中的可靠性和发电量的优化。

Future energy conversion systems are required to have high reliability and efficiency. This is particularly important in offshore wind due to the increasingly remote locations and complicated and costly maintenance for these systems, as well as the increasing share of offshore wind in UK's future energy scenarios. However, power converters which are the key enablers for producing a controlled electrical power in these applications, are proven by numerous studies to be one of the most fragile parts of these systems and a major source of maintenance cost and downtime. To improve the reliability of power converters in offshore wind farms, it is vital to be able to model the reliability of power converters at wind farm level and optimise it. This work's key hypothesis is that by active thermal management of power converters of an offshore wind farm, incorporating not only the individual converters but the interactions between them due to the wake effect, it is possible to improve the overall reliability of the system and manage it actively. For example, by intelligent derating of a component (e.g., a switch) or derating of a converter (turbine), its lifetime consumption will decrease, therefore by proper control of the system it will be possible to shift the stress from the more-stressed converter to the less-stressed ones and optimise the overall reliability of the system and manage it actively. Moreover, it would be possible to coordinate the operation of power converters for an optimal maintenance plan, for example, by increase the likelihood that more converters can continue their operation until the next planned preventive maintenance. This project therefore proposes solutions for (1) real-time wind farm level assessment and monitoring of reliability, and (2) active reliability enhancement and lifetime management of power converters in offshore wind farms. It is important to note that given the interlinked operation of wind turbines due to wake effect, a reduction in the power handling capability of a particular turbine does not necessarily mean that the overall power generated will decrease, and in fact it may even increase. Therefore, this project considers the optimisation of both reliability and power generation in a multi-objective optimisation problem.