ISSN 2347 - 3983

Volume 9. No. 8, August 2021

K. NAGAMANI, et al., International Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering Research, 9(8), August 2021, 1179 – 1184
International Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering Research
Available Online at http://www.warse.org/IJETER/static/pdf/file/ijeter24982021.pdf
https://doi.org/10.30534/ijeter/2021/24982021

Low Frequency AC Transmission for Offshore Wind Power

1
K. NAGAMANI,2PENAGANTI MADHU SUDHAN RAO,3VETURU JAYANTH,4RONGALI SATHYA
RAGHAV,5MOGANTI SAI KIRAN
1
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, Department of EEE, Lendi Institute of Engineering and Technology, INDIA,
[email protected]
2
STUDENT, Department of EEE, Lendi Institute of engineering and technology, INDIA,
[email protected]
3
STUDENT, Department of EEE, Lendi Institute of engineering and technology, INDIA, [email protected]
4
STUDENT, Department of EEE, Lendi Institute of engineering and technology, INDIA,
[email protected]
5
STUDENT, Department of EEE, Lendi Institute of engineering and technology, INDIA, [email protected]

ABSTRACT In general, the main advantage of the LFAC technology is the

increase of power capacity and transmission distance for a
given submarine cable compared to 50-Hz or 60-Hz
This paper presents a low frequency ac (LFAC) transmission HVAC.
system for offshore wind power. The LFAC system is interfaced This leads to substantial cost savings due to the reduction in
with the main power grid with a cycloconverter. The wind power cabling requirements (i.e., less lines in parallel for a desired
plant collection system is dc based, and connects to the LFAC power level) and the use of normal ac breakers for
transmission line with a 12-pulse thyristor converter. A method protection.
to design the system’s components and controls is set forth.
Simulation results are provided to illustrate the system’s
In this paper, a novel LFAC transmission topology is
performance.
analyzed. The proposed system differs from previous work
in that the wind turbines are assumed to be interconnected
Key words : Power transmission, thyristor converters, under- with a medium voltage (MV) dc grid, in contrast with
water power cables, wind energy. current practice, where the use of MV ac collection grids is
standard. DC collection is becoming a feasible alternative
1. INTRODUCTION with the development of cost effective and reliable dc
OFFSHORE wind power plants are expected to represents circuit breaker, and studies have shown that it might be
significant component of the future electric generation portfolio advantageous with respect to ac collection in terms of
due to greater space availability and better wind energy potential efficiency and improved production costs.
in offshore locations. The integration of offshore wind power plants The required dc voltage level can be built by using high-
with the main power grid is a subject of ongoing research. Presently, power dc–dc converters and/or by the series connection
high-voltage ac (HVAC) and high voltage dc (HVDC) are well- of wind turbines. For example, multi-MW permanent-
established technologies for transmission. magnet synchronous generators with fully rated power
HVAC transmission is advantageous because it is relatively converters (Type-4 turbines) are commonly used in
straightforward to design the protection system and to change offshore wind plants. By eliminating grid-side inverters, a
voltage levels using transformers. However, the high capacitance medium voltage dc collection system can be formed by
of submarine ac power cables leads to considerable charging interconnecting the rectified output of the generators. The
current, which, in turn, reduces the active power transmission main reason for using a dc collection system with LFAC
capacity and limits the transmission distance. HVAC is adopted transmission is that the wind turbines would not need to be
for relatively short (up to 50–75 km) underwater transmission redesigned to output low frequency ac power, which would
distances. In LFAC systems, an intermediate frequency level is lead to larger, heavier, and costlier magnetic components
used, which is created using a cycloconverter that lowers the grid (e.g.,step-up transformers and generators). The design of
frequency to smaller value, typically to one-third its value. the dc collection system is outside the scope of this paper.
At the sending end of the proposed LFAC system, a dc/ac
12-pulse thyristor-based inverter is used to generate low-
frequency (20- or 16 2/3-Hz) ac power, as shown in Fig.

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Fig. 2. shows Sending-end inverter control.

Phase locked loop provides angular position of the ac side voltage

which is necessary for generating the firing pulses of thyristors. It
is also outputs of R.M.S. value of the fundamental component of
the voltage, which is used in the firing angle calculation.
Fig. 1. shows Configuration of the proposed LFAC
transmission system RECEIVING END CONTROL
At onshore substation (the receiving end), a thyristor based
cycloconverter is used as an interface between the low frequency The structure of the cycloconverter controller at the receiving end
side and the 60- or 50-Hz onshore power grid. Thyristor based is illustrated in Fig. 3. The control objective is to provide a
converters can transmit more power with increased reliability and constant 20Hz voltage of a given rms value (line-to-neutral).
lower cost compared to VSC-HVDC systems. However, large The fundamental component of the cycloconverter voltage
filters are necessary at both ends to suppress low-order harmonics is obtained with the signal conditioning logic depicted in
and to supply reactive power. Furthermore, the system can be Fig. 4.
vulnerable to main power grid disturbances.
The firing angles are determined with the cosine wave crossing
The proposed LFAC system could be built with commercially method, as shown in Fig. 5, which uses phase as an example.
available power system components, such as the receiving-end The firing angles of the phase positive and negative converters
transformers and submarine ac cables designed for regular power (denoted as “aP” and “
frequency. The phase shift transformer used at the sending end
aN” in Fig. 3) are respectively. For the positive converter, the
could be a 60Hz transformer derated by a factor of three, with the
average voltage at the 20Hz terminals.
same rated current but only one-third of the original rated
voltage. Another advantage of the proposed LFAC scheme is its Condition is the ensures that average voltages with thesame
feasibility for multiterminal transmission, since the design of polarity are generated from the positive and negative converter at
multiterminal HVDC is complicated, but the analysis of such an the 20-Hz terminals. The firing pulses and are not
application is not undertaken herein. In summary, LFAC simultaneously applied to both converters, in orderto obtain a
transmission could bean attractive technical solution for medium non-circulating current mode of operation. This functionality is
distance transmission (i.e., in between HVAC and HVDC). embedded in the “Bank Selector” block of Fig. 3, which operates
The objective of this paper is to set forth as a design process for based on the filtered current .
an LFAC system for point-to-point transmission. The system
configuration and control strategies are outlined in Section II. The Note (for later use) that the maximum line-to- neutral rms
selection of the major system components is discussed in Section value of the 20-Hz cycloconverter voltage.
III-A, and filter design is discussed in Section III-B. A design More precisely, the cycloconverter sets the frequency to one-
example and time domain simulation study of the third of the power grid frequency, which can deviate slightly
proposed LFAC system are provided in Sections IV and V, from its nominal value.
respectively. Section VI concludes this paper.

SENDING END CONTROL

The control structure for the sending end inverter is shown in Fig.
2. The controller regulates the dc bus voltage by adjusting the
voltage at the inverter terminals. The cosine wave crossing method
is applied to determine the firing angle.
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Fig. 5. shows Modulator for phase

FILTER DESIGN
Fig. 3. shows Receiving-end cycloconverter control At the sending end, the 12-pulse inverter produces harmonics of
order 1, 2, … and can be represented as a
2.SYSTEM DESIGN
source of harmonic currents (in Fig. 7). These current
harmonics are filtered by two single-tuned filters for the 11th
MAIN POWER COMPONENTS
and 13th harmonic, and one damped filter for higher order
The main power components are selected based on a harmonics ( 23rd). Generally, the filter design is dependent
steady state analysis of the LFAC transmission system shown on the reactive power supplied at fundamental frequency (also
in Fig. 1, under the following assumptions: known as the filter size) and the required quality factor. The
• Only fundamental components of voltages and currents are total reactive power requirement of these filters can be
considered. The receiving end is modeled as a 20Hz estimated. Here, it is assumed that the total reactive power
voltage source of nominal magnitude. requirement is divided equally among the three filters. The
• The power losses of the reactor, thyristors, filters, and quality factor for each filtercan be determined using the method
transformers are ignored. presented. A High-Quality Factor 100) is used for the
• The resistances and leakage inductances of transformers single tuned filters, and a Low- Quality Factor is used for the
are neglected. high pass damped filter. Finally, with the capacitance and
• The ac filters are represented by an equivalent capacitance quality factor known, the inductance and resistance of each
corresponding to the fundamental frequency. filter can be determined. With such filter design, the 12-pulse-
• The design is based on rated operating conditions (i.e., related current harmonics originating at the sending end are
maximum power output). essentially absent from the transmission line.
At the steady state, the average value of the dc current is equal
At the receiving end, there are two groups of filters, namely,the
to, so the power delivered from the wind turbines.
ac filters at the 60Hz side and the LC filter at the 20Hz side. At
the 60Hz side, if the cycloconverter generates exactly one-third
of the grid frequency, and it can be shown [30, p. 360]that the line
current has only odd harmonic components (3rd, 5th, 7th, etc).
Subharmonic and inter harmonic components are not generated.
Here, three single-tuned filters and one damped filter are used to
prevent these harmonic currents from being injected into the
60Hz power grid. These filters are designed with a procedure
similar to that for the ac filters at the sending end.

Fig. 4. shows Details of the signal conditioning block. (LPF

first-order low-pass filters, with time constants equal to 0.05
s and 0.01 s for the voltage and current, respectively.

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3.SIMULATION RESULTS
To demonstrate the validity of the proposed LFAC system,
simulations have been carried out using MATLAB/Simulink
and the Piecewise Linear Electrical Circuit Simulation
(PLECS)
The wind power plant is rated at 180 MW, and the transmission
distance is 160 km. The system parametersare listed in Table I.
The parameters of the PI controllers in Figs. 2 and 3 are listed in
Table II. The transmission power cable is modeled by cascading
20 identical sections. The ABB 5STP 42U6500 and the ABB
Fig. 6. Shows Equivalent circuit of the LFAC transmission system 5STP 08F6500 thyristors are selected to construct the sending
for harmonic analysis. end inverter and the receiving end cycloconverter, respectively.
Multiple series connected 5 thyristors at the sending end and 30
At the 20Hz side, the line-to-neutral voltage has harmonics of order thyristors at the receiving end are used such that the rated voltage
3, 5, 7, …. Without subharmonic and inter harmonic components of a switch is 150% of the rated blocking voltage.
[30, p. 306]. However, the harmonic components of order equal to Fig. 13 shows the steady state line-to-line voltage and current
integer multiples of three are absent in the line-to-line voltage. waveforms at the sending end, the receiving end, the 20Hz
Therefore, as seen from the 20Hz side, the cycloconverter acts as a side of the cycloconverter, and the 60Hz power grid side under
source of harmonic voltages of orders ( rated power conditions. The 20Hz voltage generated from
in Fig. 6). the cyclo- converter has significant harmonic distortion
(THD is 14.8%). Due to the LC filter, the voltages at the
The design of the LC filter has two objectives:
receiving and sending ends have reduced THD values
1) to decrease the amplitudes of the voltage harmonics generated
(3.9% and 2.2%, respectively).The measured fundamental
by the cycloconverter;
power factor angle at the 20Hz.
2) to increase the equivalent harmonic impedance magnitudes seen
from the receiving end, indicated by in Fig. 6.
The design procedure presented here takes into account the
voltage harmonics of order 5, 7, 11, and 13. For cycloconverters,
the amplitude of the voltage harmonics only depends on the
voltage ratio and the fundamental power factor at the 20Hz side,
under the assumption of sinusoidal output current, which is
sufficient for design purposes. Generally, the voltage harmonics
tend to become worse with decreasing.
Fig. 8 illustrates the relationship between the per unit amplitudes
of the voltage harmonics under consideration and the power factor
angle , computed based on formulas in [30, p. 303]. Apparently,
for the 5th and 7th voltage harmonics, the amplitudes are
symmetric with respect to , and positive (i.e., reactive power
consumption by the cycloconverter) can result in reduced
amplitudes of the 11th and 13th harmonic currents. However, this
value is unacceptably low, so selected (for operation at rated
power).
Fig. 7. Shows Harmonic voltage amplitudes generated by
After has been determined, it follows from (18) and (19) that
the cycloconverter at the20-Hz side.
there is a linear relation between and
, as in , since

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Table 1: LFAC SYSTEM SIMULATION

PARAMETERS

Fig. 8. shows Simulated voltage and current

waveforms. (Please refer to Fig. 1 for voltage and
current monitoring positions.) (a) Sending end. (b)
Receiving end.
(c) Cycloconverter 20-Hz side. (d) 60-Hz power grid side.

Table 2 : PARAMETERS OF PI CONTROLLERS

WITH

Fig. 9. shows Transient waveforms during a wind

power ramp event.

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Fig. 9 depicts the results of a transient simulation where the [7] N. Flourentzou, V. G. Agelidis, and G. D. Demetriades, “VSC-based
power from the wind turbines ramps from 0 to 180 MW, HVDC power transmission systems: An overview,” IEEE Trans.
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a feasible solution for the integration of offshore wind
power plants over long distances, and it might be a suitable
alternative over HVDC systems in certain cases.
Furthermore, it might be easier to establish an
interconnected low frequency ac network to transmit bulk
power from multiple plants. In order to make better
informed decisions, it is necessary to perform a complete
technical and economic comparison among HVAC,
HVDC, and LFAC, evaluating factors, such as the
transmission efficiency, investment and operating costs, and
the performance under system transients.

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