Optimization of Electric System for Offshore Wind Farm Based on Lightweight Substation

Abstract

The electrical system of offshore wind farms is the key to transmit the power from wind turbines to onshore power grid. With the increase of the offshore wind farms capacity and the distance from shore, the traditional centralized offshore substations is facing the challenges of capacity and construction. To solve the above problems, we propose the lightweight substation and an improved k-medoids clustering method to find lightweight substation locations, in addition, we establish the life cycle cost model of electrical system. The example of a real offshore wind farm is taken as an optimization object. The final result shows that the lightweight substation can decrease the economic costs of the offshore wind farm electrical system.