Abstract
Offshore wind farms are gradually being planned
and built farther from the shore. The increased integration
of wind power, also onshore, and the demand for improved
power system operation give rise to a growing need for transnational
power exchanges. Grid connection is a critical factor
for successful large scale integration of offshore wind power.
In this paper a comparison study between two different grid
building strategies for offshore wind farms in the North Sea is
presented for the 2030 medium wind scenario of the TradeWind
project [1] (302 GW installed wind capacity). These two strategies
are: i) A strategy based on radial wind farm connections to
shore and point–to–point interconnections between countries,
called radial grid; ii) A strategy based on the use of offshore
nodes to build an HVDC offshore grid, called offshore grid. The
comparison addresses different power system aspects, such as the
total socio-economic benefit associated with each strategy, power
exchanges between countries, offshore wind power utilization,
grid congestions and utilization of HVDC cable capacity. We
find that the offshore grid gives a total benefit over the economic
lifetime of the grid for the European interconnected power system
of 2.6 billion Euro compared with the radial grid. Our results
show that even for moderate amounts of installed wind capacity,
the offshore grid strategy is better than the radial one, assuming
the future European power system will have a large penetration
of offshore and onshore wind power.
and built farther from the shore. The increased integration
of wind power, also onshore, and the demand for improved
power system operation give rise to a growing need for transnational
power exchanges. Grid connection is a critical factor
for successful large scale integration of offshore wind power.
In this paper a comparison study between two different grid
building strategies for offshore wind farms in the North Sea is
presented for the 2030 medium wind scenario of the TradeWind
project [1] (302 GW installed wind capacity). These two strategies
are: i) A strategy based on radial wind farm connections to
shore and point–to–point interconnections between countries,
called radial grid; ii) A strategy based on the use of offshore
nodes to build an HVDC offshore grid, called offshore grid. The
comparison addresses different power system aspects, such as the
total socio-economic benefit associated with each strategy, power
exchanges between countries, offshore wind power utilization,
grid congestions and utilization of HVDC cable capacity. We
find that the offshore grid gives a total benefit over the economic
lifetime of the grid for the European interconnected power system
of 2.6 billion Euro compared with the radial grid. Our results
show that even for moderate amounts of installed wind capacity,
the offshore grid strategy is better than the radial one, assuming
the future European power system will have a large penetration
of offshore and onshore wind power.
