The days are numbered for the Lerwick Power Station, whose diesel generators have actually provided electrical energy to the Shetland Islands for over 70 years. Beginning around the middle of 2024, the Shetlands– and likewise part of mainland Scotland– will be powered by the 443-megawatt Viking wind farm, including 103 wind turbines on the primary island of Shetland.
What’s most intriguing about the massive, ₤ 580 million task isn’t so much the turbines as the subsea transmission link that will link the wind farm to the Scottish mainland. Peak need in the Shetlands is just about 44 MW, so at any provided time as much as 90 percent of the Viking output might stream south by means of the link. The 260-kilometer, 320-kilovolt high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) transmission system, based upon innovation from Hitachi Energy, in Zurich, marks a turning point in a continuous change of the European power grid: It will plug into the very first genuinely vibrant multiterminal HVDC network in Europe.
This more recent HVDC innovation is opening up brand-new chances. “European grid operators are embracing HVDC as the innovation of option for their bulk-transmission requires in the future,” states Cornelis Plet, vice president for DNV, a consultancy that recommends on power systems and run the risk of management.
According to Plet, wind energy is driving a velocity of HVDC setups in Europe. By 2030, the European Union looks for to approximately double, to 42.5 percent, the share of energy fulfilled by renewables. Authorities are focusing on tasks that tap the fairly constant and strong winds that blow further offshore, more than 75 km, state– a range for which the high capacitance of insulated power cable televisions renders air conditioner transmission not practical. Grid operators are likewise setting up subsea DC affiliations in other areas to share wind-energy surpluses and link to backup materials, such as Scandinavia’s huge hydropower tanks. Subsea and underground HVDC cable televisions significantly look like the most practical method to press included wind power throughout overloaded nationwide grids and largely inhabited landscapes.
New Technology Drives an HVDC Renaissance
Driving this growth in HVDC are significant technical advances. Historically, HVDC lines communicated power from one single indicate another. The level of power transfer required to be set, and its instructions might not be instantly reversed– as would be required if the lines became part of a network. Beginning around 25 years earlier, the course to multiterminal HVDC systems was developed by huge enhancements in the converters that alter high-voltage rotating present to DC, and vice versa.
Power produced by the443-megawatt Viking wind farm, in the Shetland Islands, will feed a 3 terminal HVDC network, with the possibility of 2 more terminals in the future. The southern most terminal is at Blackhillock, Scotland, the website of Europe’s second-largest substation.Elias Stein
The essential advance was the execution of voltage-source converters (VSCs). To name a few functions, they permit operators of a transmission line to separately manage not just the genuine power streaming on a line, however likewise the
reactive power,
