The development of offshore wind generation is still in its infancy and set to grow over the next decade. There is no standard, proven electrical connection design for offshore wind farms. Little thought has gone into the risks, costs or loss of revenue that could follow a failure of the electrical system. Not dealing with these issues could make or break a project. Onshore wind farms have adopted a low capital cost approach to medium voltage (MV) systems. Cabling, switchgear and protection systems are designed to minimise the amount of installed equipment. Consequently most (if not all) the wind farm is disconnected following a fault and the possibilities for reconfiguration and automation are limited. This approach for onshore wind farms is justified due to the low risks of failure, ready access for manual re-configuration and relative ease of locating faults and making repairs. The implications both financial and safety of failures in an off shore wind farm are orders of magnitude greater than those for an onshore wind farm. The offshore environment places restrictions of access to the farm, complicates even the simplest repair and presents its own particular safety risks. Consequently the designs applied to on shore wind farms are not appropriate to off shore wind farms. Econnect Ltd have been carrying out research to investigate the design of innovative Medium Voltage networks for offshore wind farms, identifying areas for improvement and industry innovation that could be applied.
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