Description
Much of the wind sector is oriented to the development of large offshore wind. The trend is to consider high power single wind turbines, optimizing the costs of installation, operation and maintenance. The objective of the project is the development of medium voltage energy conversion systems for a wide range of output power, between 3 and 13.5 MW, providing the maximum efficiency, availability, scalability and adaptability in line with the offshore wind power market needs. This will allow for efficiency higher than 97.5%, power density which is 15% higher than current equipments, and increasing availability by 10%. The involvement of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology is necessary as one of the fundamental aspect and technological challenge is the research, design and development of a highly efficient solution of medium voltage power conversion modules.
Summary of project results
Nowadays, much of the wind sector is oriented to the development of large offshore wind farms thanks to technological advances in this field. The trend is to consider high power single wind turbines, optimizing the costs of installation, operation and maintenance. The new standards about power installed on a turbine are causing a change of trend in technology conversion systems used in wind systems. This change is mainly characterized by the voltage levels achieved, being increasingly turbine manufacturers seeking converters that are able to connect to medium voltage (MV) grids of 3.3 kV. The objective of the project is the development of medium voltage energy conversion systems for a wide range of output power, between 3 and 13.5 MW, providing the maximum efficiency, availability, scalability and adaptability according to the offshore wind power market needs. Two new power stacks (4.5MW and 5.6MW) have been developed for this purpose.
Summary of bilateral results
The activity that has been developed together by NTNU and INGETEAM is the study of the optimal power converter combination for power conversion systems for several paralleled Conversion Lines in the range of 6 to 13,5MW MV FC. The choice of suitable topology or topologies is not obvious and depends on the application in which the converter will be used, and other factors such as the scalability of the entire product family, the redundancy features, efficiency,... To do this, several solutions have been compared in a detailed manner (Matrix with several items to take into account in the design of the components and their influence on the entire system) in order to take the right and simplest decision. As result of this collaboration a paper entitled "Parallelization of Medium Voltage Generator - Side Converters for Multi-MW Wind Turbines: Comparison of Two Topological Alternatives" has been presented to the "International Conference on Renewable Energy Research and Applications".