Power Loss Evaluation of Submarine Cables in 500 MW Offshore Wind Farm

Abstract: The main objective of this thesis is to develop a new methodology to evaluate the transmission cable losses of wind-generated electricity. The research included the power loss variations of submarine cables in relation to the line length, cable capacity and the transmission technology in an offshore wind farm having a capacity of 500 MW. The literature of similar studies helped to generate a solid background for the research.   The comprehensive analysis carried out is based on a hypothetical wind farm and using three different power transmission wind farm models to investigate the technical reliability of transmission technology, namely, High Voltage Alternative Current (HVAC), High Voltage Direct Current Voltage Source Converter (HVDC VSC) and High Voltage Direct Current Line Commutated Converter (HVDC LCC). The analyses carried out are performed under assumptions and simplifications of power system models to evaluate the submarine cable transmission losses of 3 different transmission systems by using the MATLAB/ Simulink software.   With relevance to the simulation results, the HVAC submarine cable has more losses than any other transmission technology cables and it is suitable for short distance power transmission. The VSC technology has less losses than HVAC. Comparing with afore-mention technologies the HVDC LCC technology transmission links have the lowest line losses. Moreover, the transformer losses and the converter losses were calculated. The simulation results also included the overall power system losses by each of the transmission models.