Network-DC Circuit Breakers

Completed

Renewable Energy Sources(Wind Energy)
Other Power and Storage Technologies(Electricity transmission and distribution)

Applied Research and Development

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Electrical and Electronic Engineering)

Not Cross-cutting

Project Contact
SSEN Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission

Network Innovation Allowance

Ofgem

01 March 2022

01 May 2022

2 months

£142,288

Power

Scotland

Project Contact, SSEN Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission

Project Contact, National Grid Electricity Transmission
Project Contact, National Grid plc

To combat climate change, the UK needs clean energy. The UK is very well positioned to generate clean electricity because our coasts provide a large potential for offshore wind. The UK currently has an installed offshore wind capacity of 12GW and is targeting increasing the total capacity to 40GW by 2030. Given the scale of the developments proposed and their increasing distance from the onshore grid, the most efficient option is to connect these to the network using Direct Current (DC) cables. The electricity used by the consumer is alternating current (AC) and there is a need to convert the DC to AC at a convertor station, usually positioned on the coast and connected point-to-point to the wind farm via an offshore cable. The current method of connection is to connect each wind farm to an AC convertor station with an AC circuit breaker to protect the electricity grid from faults. However, as the number of wind farms increases, so the number of AC convertor stations increases in a point-to-point system. This has impacts on coastal communities through ever increasing number of convertor stations and cables. It is also costly to install and maintain many convertor stations, which will increase the cost of electricity to consumers.The big idea is to create DC networks that can connect multiple wind farms into a DC substation, that then can connect to fewer convertor stations. This will reduce the impact on coastal communities, reduce costs and has the potential to deliver lower cost wind energy to consumers. It will also help us open new areas for developing windfarms. To do this we need to use DC circuit breakers (DCCB), which are an innovative technology that is untested in the UK and European market. DCCB will allow us to bring multiple windfarms into a DC system, containing the impact of any single failure safely and securely. We will need to develop and test these DCCBs before we can develop a DC network. This project will test and prove the use of DC breakers so that we can implement our big idea of DC networks that can deliver safe, reliable, and cost-effective energy to the consumer.

14/10/22