Evaluation of wind farm layouts

Stefan Lundberg
Department of Electric Power Engineering Chalmers University of Technology S-412 96 G teborg, Sweden o Email: stefan.lundberg@elteknik.chalmers.se

Abstract In this paper, layouts of various large-scale wind farms, using both AC as well as DC, are investigated. The criteria in this investigation is the energy production cost. The energy production cost is dened as the total investment cost divided with the total energy production of the wind farm. To determine the energy production and the total investment cost, loss and cost models for the components in the wind farm are used (the most important models are presented in this paper). Of the investigated wind farm congurations, a wind farm with series connected DC wind turbines seems to have the best potential to give the lowest energy production cost, if the transmission distance is longer then 10-20km.

I. I NTRODUCTION Wind energy converters are becoming larger and larger and more and more erected in groups rather than one by one. Today wind farms up to a size of 160 MW are being built and several plans on 1000 MW-parks exist [1]. These larger wind farms are mainly considered to be located out in the sea, preferably at such a distance that they cannot be observed from the shore. The size of the wind farms has led to a problem of nding a suitable grid connection point, which is strong enough to take care of the power from the wind farms. This leads to that in many cases the distance between the grid connection point and the wind farm is so long, that a DC-transmission may become more favorable than a conventional AC-transmission. This is further stressed by the fact that it is extremely difcult to get permission to build new over-head lines, and therefore it must be taken into consideration that it might be necessary to use DC-cables also for the onshore transmission. Wind farm design studies have been presented in several papers, for instance [2][9]. The most detailed study was made by Bauer, Haan, Meyl and Pierik [10]. In [11] some interesting DC solutions for offshore wind farms are presented and especially the proposal of a wind farm with wind turbines connected in series, is of great interest. The energy production of various wind farms is calculated in [5], [12], [13], and in [3], [5], [13][15] the estimated cost of the produced electric energy is presented. In [16] the economics of some offshore wind farms that are build and are planned to be built, are presented. Of importance when determining the energy capture is to have detailed blade data as well as detailed loss models of components. Relevant blade data is not trivial to obtain, but previous authors have most likely used the same method as here: By not revealing the origin of the blade description, it is possible to obtain such data. Generator loss models has

for instance been presented in [14], [17], gear-box losses have been found in [17]. However, available loss models of existing high power DC/DC-converters are very crude. Cost data is another large problem area. Here the same principle seems to be dominant: Data can be obtained providing that the sources are not revealed. However, in [13], [15], [18] [20] valuable cost information is given which can be utilized. This article is based on the work presented in [21]. In [21] a detail investigation of the energy production cost of different wind farm layouts is performed. In this paper only the main results from these investigations and the philosophy of the calculation procedure are presented. The purpose of this paper is to investigate which wind farm layout that has the lowest energy production cost and how the energy production cost varies with different circumstances. II. T HE EVALUATION In this article the energy production cost is used to determine which layout that is to prefer for a given set of boundary conditions (transmission length, rated power, average wind speed etc.). The energy production cost is dened as the total investment cost of the wind farm divided with the energy production of the wind farm. Figure 1 shows the block diagram over the program that is used to calculate the energy production cost of the different wind farm layouts. The data
Data base System configuration Loss models Power performance model Wind model

Investment costs

Energy production cost

Energy production

Fig. 1. The layout of the evaluation program used to determine the best wind farm layout.

base have all the parameters and data that is needed for the calculations. In the system conguration block the wind farm is congured. From this the energy production is calculated, and the investment cost and nally the energy production cost can be determined.

III. W IND FARM LAYOUTS Generally, the wind farms investigated in this work can be represented by the sketch presented in gure 2. As seen in
local wind turbine grid wind turbine
WT WT WT WT electromechanical drive train voltage adjuster

WT

WT

WT

WT

WT

WT

WT

WT

wind farm PCC collecting transmission system grid point interface

WT

WT

WT

WT

Fig. 2.

General wind farm layout.

gure 2 the wind farm consists of a number of elements, wind turbines (WT), local wind turbine grid, collecting point, transmission system, wind farm interface to the point of common connection (PCC). It shall be noticed that all wind turbines in this work have a voltage adjusting unit (AC or DC transformer) included in the wind turbine unit itself. The local wind turbine grid connects the wind turbine units to the collecting point. The wind turbine units are connected in parallel to radials, unless otherwise is specied in this work. In the collecting point, the voltage is increased to a level suitable for transmission. The energy is then transmitted to the wind farm grid interface over the transmission system. The wind farm grid interface adapts the voltage, frequency and the reactive power of the transmission system to the voltage level, frequency and reactive power demand of the grid in the PCC. The size of the wind turbines has in this project been selected to 2MW, since these turbines are available for all kinds of wind energy systems today. However, it should be pointed out that the main results of this study would most likely not be very different if another turbine size would have been selected. This work focuses on four sizes of wind farms

between the modules are made, the park can be more fault tolerate. In this work the wind power plants will be placed in a grid with 7 rotor diameters between the turbines in both directions. This seems to be a commonly used distance and at Horns Rev the distance used is 7 rotor diameters [22]. Of course, if the wind is mainly coming from one direction, the wind turbines can be placed closer in the direction perpendicular to the prevailing winds. But for the Nordic countries, wind directions from northwest to south are quit normal, which means that the wind turbines should be placed with an equal distance in all directions. In this work, it is thus assumed that the wind turbines are put in a grid with 7 rotor diameters between. The distance from the column nearest the collecting point to the collecting point is also 7 rotor diameters, see gure 2. Since 7 rotor diameters was used, it was possible to neglect the wake effects. Anyway, if wake effects were taken into account, it would not affect the comparison between different wind farm congurations very much. A. AC/AC layouts Today the by far most common electrical system (both transmission and local grid system) for wind farms is AC. In this work, two different AC-systems are investigated, referred to as the small and the large AC wind farm. Three core cables are used for AC transmission throughout this work. The rst conguration to be discussed is the small AC wind farm. The idea with the small AC wind farm, is that it should be suitable for small wind farms with a short transmission distance. In the small AC wind farm, the local wind farm grid is used both for connecting all wind turbines in a radial together and to transmit the generated power to the wind farm grid interface, which is shown in gure 3. For this system the
local wind turbine grid and transmission system
WT WT WT WT

collecting point

wind farm grid interface PCC

60MW 100MW 160MW 300MW

WT

WT

WT

WT

WT

WT

WT

WT

WT

WT

WT

WT

Although most wind farms today are much smaller then 60MW, 60MW is used as a small wind farm here. Horns Ref is one example of a 160MW offshore wind farm 14-20km out of the west coast of Denmark [22]. It is today (2003) the largest built sofar. No larger wind farms than 300MW is taken under consideration in this work due to the fact that if a larger wind farm is going to be build it will probably be divided into smaller modules, where a maximum module size of 300MW seems appropriate. Two advantages using modular building of wind farms are, that the investment cost of the whole wind farm is spread out over a longer period and that part of the production can start before the whole park has been built. Another advantage of this division is that if cross connections

Fig. 3.

The electrical system for the small AC wind farm.

cables in the local wind farm grid are assumed to be installed one and one from the wind turbines to the collecting point. From the collecting point to the wind farm grid interface, all cables are assumed to be installed together. This means that there is one cable installation cost per cable from the wind turbines to the collecting point and only one cable installation cost for all cables from the collecting point to the wind farm grid interface. Let us now study a slightly different conguration, the large AC wind farm. The large AC wind farm system is a more

traditional system, based on the general system in gure 2. This system has a local wind farm grid with a lower voltage level (20-30kV) connected to a transformer and a high voltage transmission system. This system requires an offshore platform for the transformer and switch gear, as can be seen in gure 4. Horns Rev wind farm is build according to this principle. For
local wind turbine grid
WT WT WT WT

technology. The transistor technology is also more attractive due to the better controllability of the reactive power. C. DC/DC layouts For the pure DC wind farm, three different congurations are investigated. Two that are based on the two layouts of the AC systems, referred to as the small DC wind farm and the large DC wind farm, and one conguration with the turbines in series, as shown in [11]. The electrical system for the small DC wind farm is shown in gure 6. As can be noticed, the electrical system for the
local wind turbine grid and transmission system wind farm grid interface PCC

offshore platform

wind farm grid interface transmission system PCC

WT

WT

WT

WT

WT

WT

WT

WT

WT

WT

WT

WT

collecting point

WT

WT

WT

WT

collecting point

WT

WT

WT

WT

Fig. 4.

The electrical system for the large AC wind farm.

DC DC

DC AC

this system there is one cable installation cost per cable, due to the fact that all cables have different routes. B. AC/DC layout In this system the AC transmission in gure 4 has been replaced with a DC transmission, this wind farm will be referred to as the AC/DC wind farm. This type of system does not exist today, except for one or a few small experimental wind farms, but it is frequently proposed when the distance to the PCC is long, or if the AC grid that the wind farm is connected to is weak. The system is shown in gure 5. In this system we have an independent local AC system in which both the voltage and the frequency are fully controllable with the offshore converter station. This can be utilized for a collective variable speed system of all wind turbines in the park. The benets with this are that the aerodynamic and/or electrical efciency can be increased, depending on the wind turbine system used.
local wind turbine grid
WT WT WT WT

WT

WT

WT

WT

Fig. 6.

The electrical system for the small DC wind farm.

offshore platform
AC DC

wind farm grid interface transmission system

WT

WT

WT

WT

PCC

small DC wind farm is identical to the system of the small AC wind farm. The only difference is that the transformer in the wind farm grid interface is replaced with a DC transformer and an inverter. Of course, a rectier is needed in each wind turbine. The advantage of the small DC park compared to the large DC park is, as for the small versus large AC park, that it does not require an offshore platform. The installation cost of the cables are assumed to be the same as for the small AC wind farm. The conguration of the electrical system for the large DC wind farm can differ somewhat from the conguration of the large AC wind farm. The difference is if it requires one or two transformations steps to increase the DC voltage from the wind turbines to a level suitable for transmission. It is assumed that if the DC voltage from the wind turbines is high enough (20-40kV) only one transformation step is required. But if the output voltage of the wind turbine is lower (5kV), two steps are required. In gure 7 this system is presented with two DC transformer steps. For the large DC wind farm with two
local wind turbine grid offshore platform
DC DC
WT WT WT WT

WT

WT

WT

WT

WT

WT

WT

WT

collecting point

WT

WT

WT

WT

Fig. 5.

The electrical system for the AC/DC wind farm.

DC DC
WT WT WT WT

transmission system
DC DC

wind farm grid interface

PCC

The installation cost of the cables are the same as for the large AC wind farm. The two DC transmission cables, one for the positive pole and one for the negative pole, are assumed to be installed together and therefore there is only one cable installation cost for these two cables. For all DC solutions throughout this work, only transistor technology is used. The classical thyristor technology is assumed to be too large in physical size to be an attractive

DC DC
WT WT WT WT

DC DC

collecting point

Fig. 7. The electrical system for the large DC wind farm with two DC transformer steps.

transformation steps, all wind turbines are divided into smaller

clusters. All wind turbines within one cluster are connected one by one to the rst transformation step. The high-voltage side of the rst DC transformer step are then connected to the second step, as can be noticed in gure 7. If only one step is used, the wind turbines are connected in radials directly to the second DC transformer step, similarly as for the large AC wind farm in gure 4. For this system there is one cable installation cost per cable, due to the fact that all cables have different routes. In the third DC system shown in gure 8 the wind turbines are connected in series, as mention before, in order to obtain a voltage suitable for transmission directly. This system is referred to as the series DC wind farm. The benet of this
local wind turbine grid wind turbine High Low voltage voltage
G WT WT WT WT

obtained. The losses that are considered in this work are: Aerodynamic losses Gear box Generator (AG and PM) Transformer Wind turbine converter Cables (AC and DC) Cable compensating inductor HVDC converter DC/DC converter The aerodynamic losses is only considered if the used turbine is not operated at maximum efciency below rated power. This is the case for xed speed wind turbines at low wind speeds. The specic other losses are, of course, only considered if the wind farm layout studied includes the specic component. The used loss models can be found in [21]. As mentioned before, the rotor blades convert some of the kinetic energy of the wind to mechanical energy on the rotor shaft. The efciency of this conversion depends on several factors such as blade proles, pitch angle, tip speed ratio and air density. The pitch angle, , is the angle of the blades towards the rotational plane. If the pitch angle is low, the blades are almost perpendicular to the wind and if it is high (near 90 degrees) the blades are almost in parallel with the hub direction. The tip speed ratio, , is the ratio between the tip speed of the blades and the wind speed, equation 3. The conversion from wind speed to mechanical power can in steady state be described by [23] Pmec Where: Pmec R t ws Cp (, ) = =
3 ws R2 Cp (, ) 2 t R . ws

WT

WT

WT

WT

AC AC

AC DC

wind farm grid interface

Local DC/DC converter

PCC

WT

WT

WT

WT

transmission system

WT

WT

WT

WT

Fig. 8.

DC electrical system with series connected wind turbines.

system is that it, in spite of a relatively large possible size, does not require large DC-transformers and offshore platforms. The voltage insulation in the wind turbines is taken by the transformer in the local DC/DC converter. The drawback with this conguration is that the DC/DC converters in the wind turbines must have the capability to operate towards a very high voltage. This is due to the fact that if one wind turbine does not feed out energy and therefore fails to hold the output voltage, the other turbines must compensate for this by increasing their output voltage. For this system, there is one cable installation cost per cable, due to the fact that all cables have different routes, as can be noticed in gure 8. IV. AVERAGE POWER PRODUCTION The power delivered to the PCC from the wind farm is calculated as PP CC = PW IN D Plosses . (1)

(2) (3)

mechanical power on the shaft [W] rotor radius [m] rotor speed [rad/s] air density = 1.225 [kg/m3 ] wind speed [m/s] tip speed ratio pitch angle aerodynamic efciency

The aerodynamic capture, PW IN D , is used in this paper as the input power to the wind farm. It is dened as the power all turbines in the wind farm converts from the wind to mechanical power on the turbines shafts. It is assumed that for wind speeds below rated the turbine is operated at maximum efciency and for wind speeds over rated the turbine is operated at the rated input power. In this work an important base assumption is that the same rated input shaft power is used for all wind turbine systems. From the input power, PW IN D , the losses, Plosses , that is considered in this paper are subtracted and the output power, PP CC , is thus

Equation 2 is used in this article to calculate the input power to the wind farm, the aerodynamic capture. To describe the variations in the wind speed over a year a density function is used. There are several density functions which can be used to describe how the wind speed is distributed. The two most common are the Weibull and the Rayleigh functions. The Rayleigh distribution, or chi2 distribution, is a subset of the Weibull distribution. The Weibull distribution is described by [23] f (ws ) = k ws k1 (ws /c)k ( ) e c c (4)

Where: f (ws ) ws k c

Probability density Wind speed > 0 [m/s] Shape parameter > 0 Scale parameter > 0

Where: Cost Prated

Structure cost for the offshore platform [MEUR] Rated power of the wind farm [MW]

cutout

Scaled prize [MEUR]

Comparisons with measured wind speeds over the world show that the wind speed can be reasonably well described by the Weibull density function if the time period is not too short. Periods of several weeks to a year or more is usually reasonably well described by the Weibull distribution but for shorter time periods the agrement is not so good [23]. In this paper the Rayleigh distribution is used to describe the wind speed variations over a year. This distribution is obtained if the shape parameter, k, in the Weibull distribution is put equal to 2. The average input power can be calculated by calculate the expectation value of the input power. The expectation value can be calculated as: Pin,AV G =
cutin

This cost model is for a quite sophisticated platform with living quarters for workers, heliport, low and high voltage switch gear, transformers and/or converters. Of course, in some cases a simpler platform can be sufcient. Anyway, in this work, the cost model presented in equation 6 is used for the structure of all offshore platforms in this work. In gure 9 the cost information given for different wind turbines in the range 1 to 2.5MW is shown. The costs for the wind turbines are normalized by a linear equation to 2MW. The circles in gure 9 shows the cost information used and
2.2 2 1.8 1.6 1.4 1.2 1 0.8 0.6 1 Middelgrunden 2 3 4 5 6 Number 7 8 9 10

Pmec (ws )f (ws )dws .

(5)

Where: Pin,AV G cutin cutout Pmec (ws ) f (ws )

Average input power [kW] Cut in wind speed =3 [m/s] Cut out wind speed =25 [m/s] Input power of the wind turbine [kW] Rayleigh distribution

Equation 5 can also be used to calculate the average output power from the wind farm. By substituting the input power, Pmec (ws ), to the output power. V. I NVESTMENT COST A difcult task in this investigation was to obtain relevant cost data for the components, due to secrecy policies, in the different wind farms layouts. In the list below the components that is taken into consideration when the total investment is calculated are shown. In the list the most relevant cost data is presented, except for the wind turbine, offshore platform and for the cables. The used cost models for the other components can be found in [21]. Wind turbine Wind turbine Foundation Cables (AC and DC) Cable installation Protections Offshore platform Transformer Cable compensating inductor HVDC converter station DC/DC converter = 0.801MEUR = 85.4EUR/m onshore = 256EUR/m offshore

Fig. 9. The cost of the wind turbines after normalizing the output power to 2MW. Circles denotes the costs used, stars the costs that was not used and the solid line the cost for a 2MW wind turbine.

the stars shows three outliers that was not used. From gure 9 it can be observed that the cost of a 2MW wind turbine is approximately 1.63MEUR. The most interesting outlier in gure 9 is marked Middelgrunden and is the cost from the home page of the Middelgrunden wind farm [24]. The cost for the 2MW wind turbine is used for all wind turbine types in this paper. For the 2MW DC wind turbines it is assumed that they cost the same as a 2MW AC wind turbine. For the cable costs, AC and DC, four examples are given in gure 10. In the gure two AC cables are presented and two DC cables, the circles and stars indicate the costs that was given and the lines the models developed. From gure 10 it can be noticed that the DC cables are much cheaper for the same rating then the AC cables. A. Energy production cost The energy production cost is dened as how much it cost to produce and deliver a unit of energy to the grid, i.e to the PCC. The energy production cost is obtained by dividing the total investment cost of the wind farm with the total energy delivered to the PCC. The total investment cost is calculated assuming that the whole investment is made in the rst year and paid off during the life time of the wind farm. In addition, it is also assumed that some prot shall be made. The total energy that is delivered to the PCC is calculated by multiplying the average power delivered to the PCC with the average

= 0.107EUR/W = 0.107EUR/W

The cost for the structure of the offshore platform is assumed to be described with equation 6. Cost = 2.14 + 0.0747Prated (6)

1.4 1.2 33 kVAC Prize [MEUR/km] 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 0 100 200

220 kVAC Energy production cost [EUR/kWh]

0.065 0.06 0.055 0.05 0.045 0.04 0.035 0.03 0.025 0.02 Profit = 20% 10% 0% 5%

300 kVDC 160 kVDC

300 400 500 Rated power [MVA]

600

700

800

0.015 0

4 5 6 Interest rate [%]

10

Fig. 10. The cost of the AC and DC cables, circles cost information given for AC cables and stars for DC cables. The voltages are line to line voltages.

Fig. 11. The energy production cost for the Horns Rev wind farm for different prots, solid line prot = 0%, dotted =5%, dashed =10% and dash-dotted =20%. The input data is taken from [22] and the energy production cost is calculated by (7).

number of operational hours during one year multiplied with the lifetime of the wind farm. The average power is calculated with equation 5. With these assumptions the energy production cost can be calculated as in equation 7. Ecost = = Where: Ecost Invest Pout,AV G T r N PR K r(1 + r)N 100 Pout,AV G T (1 + r)N 1 100 P R Invest K Pout,AV G Invest

(7)

Energy production cost [EUR/kWh] Investment [EUR] Average output power [kW] Average operational hour during one year [h] Interest rate [-] Lifetime of the wind farm [years] Prot in % Constant

for the Horns Rev wind farm, 0.043EUR/kWh. In gure 12 the normalized energy production cost are shown for the six systems for a rated power of the wind farm of 160MW and a average wind speed of 10m/s. As can be noticed the cost found for the large AC park (The Horns Rev case, totaly 55km transmission length [25]) is 10% lower then the real case. However, since real price information is hard to obtain and the fact that Horns Rev was the rst large offshore wind farm the results are considered to be surprisingly good. It should be stressed that this work focuses on comparing systems rather then obtaining correct total costs, since this was considered to be out of reach without having access to really good cost data.

1.4 1.3 Energy production cost [p.u.] 1.2 1.1 1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 Transmission length [km] 160 180 200 Smal DC Smal AC Large DC Large AC AC/DC

The life time of the wind farm is in this paper set to 25 years and the average operational hours during one year is set to 365 24 = 8760. In gure 11 the energy production cost for the Horns Rev wind farm is shown for different prots and as function of the interest rate. According to [22] Horns Rev has a yearly production of 600 000 000kWh, an average wind speed of 9.7m/s and a project cost of DKK 2 billion. As can be noticed from the gure 11 the energy production cost increases with increasing interest rate and prot as can be expected. In this paper the interest rate is set to 7% and the prot to 10%. This gives an energy production cost of approximately 0.043EUR/kWh, accordingly to the assumptions used in this paper. This also gives that the production cost gets about 138% higher then without prot and interest rate. VI. E NERGY PRODUCTION COST OF THE SIX LAYOUTS In this section the best conguration of each of the six wind farm layouts are compared with each other, small AC, large AC, AC/DC, small DC, large DC and series DC. The energy production cost for the six investigated types of electrical system are normalized by the energy production cost obtained

Serie DC

Fig. 12. The normalized energy production cost of the different 160MW wind farms as function of the transmission distance and at a average wind speed of 10m/s.

If the three wind farms with AC are compared, small AC (solid black), large AC (dashed) and AC/DC (dash-dotted) these results are as expected. The small AC wind farm is the best solution for short distances, the AC/DC is best suitable for long distances and the large AC is best in between. The small AC wind farm is the best for short distances due to that it does not require an offshore platform. So the additional cost for many low voltage transmission cables is less then the cost for

the platform and the high voltage transmission cable, for short distances. The cost for the low voltage transmission increases rapidly when the transmission distance increases. The break even point between the small and large AC system is at a transmission distance of 19km. The AC/DC system has, due to the expensive converter stations, a high energy production cost for short distances. Due to the fact that the cost for the transmission cables are less for DC then for AC, see section V, the AC/DC system gets better then the large AC system for transmission lengths over 125km. The large DC system is better then the AC/DC system due to that the losses in a DC wind turbine is lower then in an AC wind turbine in this work. Moreover, the cost for the local DC grid is less then the cost for the local AC grid and the losses in the DC transformer are less then the losses in the offshore converter station. These costs are independent of the transmission length, but since the two systems has the same transmission system (DC cables), the large DC wind farm will for any transmission length be better then the AC/DC wind farm (using the assumptions made in this work). As could be expected, the small DC wind farm is no good solution. This is due to that it still requires a large DC transformer and a converter station. The gain of cheaper cables and somewhat lower losses is not enough to compensate for the expensive DC transformer and converter station. But compared to the large DC system it is better for short distances. The reason is that it does not require an offshore platform. From gure 12 it can be seen that the best wind farm solution for a transmission length over 10km is the series DC wind farm. This is due to the fact that it does not require an offshore platform, it has a cheaper local wind turbine grid, DC transmission (cheaper then AC) and this system has only one converter station. The uncertainty which is also a great challenge for research in the high voltage eld, is how expensive it will be to have the high voltage insulation in each wind turbine. It was also observed that the break even point between the small AC and large AC is decreasing when the wind farm size is increased [21]. This is caused by the fact that the contribution to the energy production cost from the transmission system decreases when the wind farm size is increased. The decrease is larger for the large AC wind farm then for the small AC wind farm. Another observation that has been made is that the energy production cost decreases when the rated power of the wind farm increases. Another parameter that strongly affects the energy production cost is the average wind speed. Figure 13 shows how the energy production cost varies with the average wind speed. The curve is normalized by the costs at a average wind speed of 10m/s. As can be noticed from the gure 13 the cost increases rapidly if the average wind speed decreases. At a average wind speed of 6.5m/s the energy production cost is twice as high as at 10m/s.

5 4.5 Energy production cost [p.u] 4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Average wind speed [m/s] 12 13 14

Fig. 13. Energy production cost as function of the average wind speed, normalized with the cost at a average wind speed of 10m/s.

VII. C ONCLUSION Six different types of electrical congurations of wind farms has been investigated for the energy production cost. The investigate types are Small AC Where the local wind turbine grid is used for transmission Large AC Which has a low voltage grid between the wind turbines and has a central transformer on an offshore platform for increasing the voltage level to a level suitable for transmission to the PCC AC/DC Similar to the Large AC wind farm but with the difference that the transmission is made using DC instead of AC Small DC Similar to the Small AC wind farm but with the difference that the wind turbine has a DC voltage output Large DC Similar to the Large AC wind farm but with the difference that the wind turbine has a DC voltage output Series DC Uses series connected wind turbines with a DC voltage output The investigation is done for different rated wind farm powers, different transmission lengths and different average wind speeds. The results regarding the energy production cost for the AC wind farms was as expected. The small AC wind farm was best for short transmission distances (up to approximately 1020km) and the AC/DC wind farm was best for long distances (above approximately 130km). The large AC wind farm is best in between the small AC and the AC/DC wind farm. For the DC wind farms the results was somewhat surprising, except for the small DC wind farm, where it was found that it is not a good solution, due to the high costs of the converter station and DC transformers. For the large DC wind farm it was found that it is better then the AC/DC wind farm. This is due to that DC cables are cheaper then AC cables. But the reduction in the energy production cost is not so large, which results in that the large AC wind farm is still better for

shorter transmission distances. The most surprising results was for the series DC wind farm. This conguration shows very promising performance. The energy production cost for the series DC wind farm was the lowest for all the six investigated wind farm congurations for transmission lengths over 20km. For example, for a wind farm with a rated power of 160MW, a transmission length of 80km and an average wind speed of 10m/s it was found that the series DC wind farm has an energy production cost of 0.86p.u. The large AC has an energy production cost of 0.97p.u, the large DC 0.98p.u. The message can also be expressed as: An increased investment cost of 13% can be allowed for the series DC park before the production cost becomes equal to the large AC park, using the input data that was available in this work As expected, the energy production cost was strongly dependent on the average wind speed. As an example, the energy production cost at an average wind speed of 6.5m/s was twice as high as the cost for an average wind speed of 10m/s. It was also found that the energy production cost decreases when the power of the wind farm increases. This work has presented necessary steps to determine the energy production cost. It should be stressed that the cost results, of course, depend strongly on the cost input parameters. The aim here has been to present a determination strategy that can be of value for further wind farm design and cost studies. ACKNOWLEDGMENT This work has been carried out at the Department of Electric Power Engineering at Chalmers University of Technology. The nancial support given by the Swedish National Energy Agency and ABB Power Technologies is gratefully acknowledged. R EFERENCES
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