Management and viability of multi-terminal HVDC for offshore renewable energy networking

This paper looks at Multi-Terminal Voltage Source Converter High Voltage Direct Current (MT-VSC-HVDC) technology as a means of distributing renewable electricity generation, whilst providing a dependable, secure, resilient transmission network with redundancy and quality. VSC-HVDC has already proven itself for transmission links over 900km and more are being built. For MT-VSC-HVDC technology to be viable and proven within the offshore industry, it would have to face up to the already proven HVAC and VSC-HVDC links used today, like Germany's BorWin1 wind farm venture. Many papers have studied VSC-HVDC technology over HVAC in terms of its engineering and economics, but very little has been done in the way of MT-VSC-HVDC. This new transmission medium shall be reviewed in terms of its economics, viability and operational costs through a simplified model. This paper was instigated by another research being conducted on fault analysis within a meshed VSC-HVDC network. Evidence in this paper will ascertain the importance of MT-VSC-HVDC networks within the future of renewable energy networking, when compared with point-to-point HVDC/HVAC networks and when covering larger seas.