Novel Voltage Source Converter based HVDC Transmission System for Offshore Wind Farms

Offshore wind farms have recently emerged as promising renewable energy sources. For increasing distances between offshore generation and onshore distribution grid, HVDC transmission systems based on voltage source converters can be a feasible and competitive solution. This thesis presents a comprehensive evaluation of a novel integrated wind farm topology that includes the generator drive system, the turbine interconnection and the HVDC transmission. In the proposed concept, every wind turbine is connected to a single-phase medium-frequency collection grid via a distribution transformer and a cycloconverter, which allows the wind turbines to operate at variable speed. The collection grid is connected to an HVDC cable via a transmission transformer and a single-phase voltage source converter. This thesis evaluates in detail the principle of operation, which is also verified with system simulations in PSCAD. The proposed concept promises several potential benefits. Converter switching losses and stress on the semiconductors for example can be considerably reduced by applying a soft-switched commutation scheme in all points of operation. Single-phase medium-frequency transformers have comparably low losses and their compact size and low weight implies an important benefit in an offshore environment. In addition, the voltage source converter is considerably simplified by the reduction to one phase leg, which implies a substantial cost saving.