Techno-Economical Assessment of MVAC and MVDC Collector Systems for Offshore Wind Farms

This paper presents a techno-economic framework for assessing medium voltage AC/DC collector systems for off-shore wind farms (OWFs). Key technical factors are evaluated through a probabilistic optimal power flow (OPF) analysis and reflected in the cost calculation. The long-term variability of wind speed is modeled using a Weibull distribution. Three different grid layouts are designed and compared, namely radial, ring, and star topologies. In addition, the optimal sizing problem is also examined to find the best balance between collector system utilization and wind power curtailment. Numerical results show that MVDC options can significantly reduce costs compared to their AC counterparts.