Optimisation of Node Configuration In Offshore Supergrids

Completed

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
National Grid Electricity Transmission

Network Innovation Allowance

Ofgem

01 June 2011

01 June 2016

60 months

£106,000

Power

London

Network Innovation Allowance

Project Contact, National Grid Electricity Transmission

The objective of this project is to better understand the considerations that are to be taken when considering further infrastructure with regard to offshore DC connections. This project will be successful on receipt of the deliverables - these will be in the form of interim reports.

A new European Supergrid layered over existing transmission systems offers the opportunity to exploit the resource and load diversity on a continental scale, which, when supplemented with demand action or storage, can provide an optimal route to maintaining a balanced system with a high penetration of renewable energy. Much of this new layer will be offshore, cable based and operated with DC. Almost any network configuration could be built but investment costs are huge and optimisation is essential. This is a balance between flexibility and reliability on one hand, and capital and running costs on the other. The process of joining “routes” together to form the supergrid is assumed to be straightforward, but at the detail level it is not. Interfacing DC routes of different system voltages requires almost as much equipment as linking via an AC node. Nodes may well be large areas not points, because they must join large area windfarms (such as 10 x 1GW arrays in Dogger Bank) and nodes may be heavily symmetric (Dogger Bank with, say, 10GW connections to GB; 2GW connection to Hornsea and 1GW connection to Norway). Decisions between competing structures will depend on detailed issues such as platform size and losses (running costs) of DC/DC versus AC/DC converters and the value placed on security of connection to wind versus hydro. This project uses case studies to explore the issues of what will drive the topology and technology of interconnection of Supergrid routes, and examine the evolutionary paths that could bring us to a near optimal format. Research A comprehensive literature review will be completed, based on the following topics: Modelling a high power DC/DC converter using MATLAB, further developed into a bi-directional DC/DC converter Examine the H-Network simulink model of the multi-terminal set-up. Based on this model, a similar model with different voltage levels will be connected using the aforementioned DC/DC converter model. Building on this model is the next stage, creating a multi-terminal system that has different voltage levels and incorporate the DC/DC converter in the node, acting like a transformer.Note : Project Documents may be available via the ENA Smarter Networks Portal using the Website link above

14/09/18