Control of Offshore Wind Turbines Connected to Diode-Rectifier-Based HVdc Systems

Diode-rectifier-based high voltage dc (DR-HVdc) systems can be a promising low-cost solution for exporting wind power from remote offshore wind farms to onshore power systems. Industrializing the offshore DR-HVdc requires technical maturation, achievable through in-depth studies and pilot experiments.

Deployment of offshore DR-HVdc systems may entail a fundamental change of control philosophy in wind turbine (WT) converters from grid-following control to grid-forming. This paper proposes a new grid-forming control for DR-connected offshore WT converters. The proposed controller uses two sequential control loops to regulate WTs' active power, and maintain the frequency and voltage of the offshore ac network.

The first control regulates the active-power mismatch of each WT into a voltage angle deviation, which leads to a frequency change. The second control adjusts the WT's alternating voltage magnitude to counteract the frequency change. An internal current control loop is used to limit the fault current and eliminate high-frequency resonances in the system.

The proposed control is verified by electromagnetic transient simulations, including fault-ride through, WTs power change, reactive power disturbance, and WTs outage.