Case Study
System Stability after Integration of Large Amount of Offshore Wind
Client locations:
This project involves a large-scale EMT (PSCAD) study of an area of the Belgium system involving mainly 380 kV transmission corridors that will be experiencing a large influx of power (up to 7000 MW) infeed in future years, mostly from new offshore wind farms and from new HVDC interconnection.
Requirements:
The high-level criteria for the system are:
- The system needs to be able to cover the loss of any ordinary (N-1) and exceptional (N-x with common mode) contingencies
- The system has to be able to cope with a loss of a maximum of 3000 MW
The overarching objective of this study was to determine the minimum and “optimal” system needs/offshore power infeed (wind parks or HVDCs) requirements to allow a safe operation of the system in all and various possible operating conditions, respecting N-1/N-2.
An evaluation of model performance and communication with the manufacturer to suggest better-tuned controller parameters was performed. Additionally, mitigation including synchronous condensers and special protection systems (SPS) were evaluated to mitigate control interactions between the various power electronics devices.
TGS performed the EMT study and modelling for this project, which involved the use of PSCAD vendor-provided models for Type 4 wind farms to perform a large-scale PSCAD study of onshore AC system grid enhancements required to integrate new power infeed from HVDC links and several offshore wind farms. The TSO is in the process of implementing the proposed mitigation measures.