Posters

Abstract

Renewable energy systems are providing an increasing share of the power absorbed by customers of power grids. Connection of offshore wind farms to the main power grid is obtained by means of submarine cables, ac or dc depending mainly on distance. The inherent fluctuation of the power produced by wind energy conversion systems has often been addressed with conservative assumptions in the design of several components. The development in the knowledge of wind generation obtained by long term measurements and numerical models, however, is concurring to provide more reliable estimates on expected power generation output, particularly for offshore wind farms. The optimization of cable design over such power loading profiles (dynamic rating) may allow an increase up to approximately 15% in maximum power on a typical export cable with reference to a typical wind load. A reduction of cable cross-section may also be attained for buried cables during the design phase. This is especially true for cable at the landfall where the installation conditions are generally more thermally stressful. Several methodologies have been developed and exploited in the past years, but for one to be completely reliable, an experimental confirmation is requested. Such confirmation allows to decrease the risks involved in a dynamic rating design approach and to safely establish its use in projects optimization. This paper presents a validation of the methodology applicable to both single and three cores cables presented in: L. Colla, M. Marelli - Dynamic rating of submarine cables. Application to offshore windfarms – EWEA Off-shore, Frankfurt 2013.