Japan - Collaboration between SINTEF and Kyoto University on offshore wind and HVDC grids

SINTEF Energi develops and applies methods and tools to identify economic offshore grid structures relevant for grid connection of offshore wind and inter-area power trade. The approach takes into account variability in wind and demand. The focus so far has been on the North Sea region. Offshore grids relevant for Japan is an interesting case where these ideas may be applied. Kyoto University has a track record of research on HVDC grids with emphasis on their dynamic interaction to conventional HVAC grids and stability of composite AC/DC grids. Kyoto University are developing methodology and tools for "data-centric" grid design and management, which have been successfully applied to stability assessment, inter-area power flow diagnostic, and grid monitoring. SINTEF has supported Japanese colleagues by providing electrical measurement data from Norwegian Windparks for validation of their models. The common theme for collaboration within this field has been the concept of robust optimisation. In addition to the sharing of ideas and knowledge in general, joint work is focussing on a Nordic case. The aim was to combine the concepts in a common case study to demonstrate benefits of incorporating robustness in grid expansion planning and market planning. Results of the work have been presented at EERA DeepWInd and CMS 2018 Conferences.

The planned project will be within Energy Management in the fields of offshore wind power and HVDC grids. These are closely related as HVDC technology development is largely driven by demands created by offshore wind power, and the deployment of large offshore wind power plants far from shore requires HVDC transmission grid. The project collaboration will strengthen the ProOfGrids project by linking activities related to WP2 (Modelling of power converters and DC grid components) and WP3 (Analysis of component interactions during normal and fault conditions) with relevant activities at Kyoto University. Two specific topics have been identified as highly relevant for the associated ENERGIX project (ProOfGrids) and of strong common interest. These are A) Offshore HVDC Grids/Offshore grid Design and B) Offshore wind farm level control.