DC Fault Study of a Point-to-Point HVDC System Integrating Offshore Wind Farm Using High-Temperature Superconductor DC Cables

• Published in: IEEE transactions on energy conversion Vol. 37; no. 1; pp. 377 - 388
• Main Authors: Xiang, Wang, Yuan, Weijia, Xu, Lie, Hodge, Eoin, Fitzgerald, John, McKeever, Paul, Bell, Keith
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.03.2022; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Cables; Circuit faults; Circuits; Converters; Critical current density (superconductivity); DC fault; Feasibility studies; high temperature superconducting; High temperature superconductors; HVDC transmission; Insulated gate bipolar transistors; modular multilevel converter; Offshore; Offshore energy sources; Power cables; renewable energy; Short circuits; Superconducting cables; wind energy; Wind farms; Wind power
• ISSN: 0885-8969; 1558-0059
• DOI: 10.1109/TEC.2021.3094308

This paper presents a feasibility study of an offshore wind farm (OWF) HVDC integration system using high-temperature superconductor (HTS) DC cables. A representative ±100 kV/2 GW point-to-point OWF HVDC system is proposed including HTS DC cables and two converter stations using modular multilevel converters (MMCs). To be compatible with the high current rating of the HTS cables, each of the offshore and onshore converter stations consists of three MMCs in parallel. To study the interaction between HTS DC cables and MMCs, a multiple lumped π-section model of a HTS DC cable considering electrical and thermal functionality is developed. This paper provides a critical assessment of the proposed HVDC-HTS system, with emphasis on the performance under fast DC fault transients. Detailed simulations presented in this paper reveal that the HVDC-HTS system provides effective current limiting against DC cable short circuit faults.