Professor of the Department of Power Stations, Grids, and Electric Power Systems of the SUSU Institute of Engineering and Technology Evgeniy Solomin has co-authored a Chinese review study on offshore wind energy generation, published in the Energies prestigious scientific journal of MDPI publishing house.
An international team of scientists proposed using artificial intelligence in calculating the topology, that is the configuration and arrangement of wind power system units.
Offshore wind energy generation is currently one of the most promising, environmentally friendly and green technologies. However, it also faces its own challenges: voltage instability and cable breaking caused by marine vessels.
“The development of offshore wind energy technologies represents great importance for Russia in the next 5-10 years,” says Professor Evgeniy Solomin. “This includes concluding contracts in Russia and abroad, given that Rosatom is constructing wind farms in Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, and a number of other countries.”
A review and analysis of the available literature shows that 35 kV alternating current (AC) is most often used today to transmit energy from offshore wind farms to power plants. This is reliable, but expensive and inefficient. The authors cite an example of how switching to 66 kV AC allows for cheaper materials, fewer substations, more energy, and ultimately savings of hundreds of millions of yuan for an 800 MW farm located 90 km off the shore. However, calculations show that further increases in voltage will again lead to a decrease in efficiency, especially above 100 kV with the same parameters. On the other hand, switching from AC to DC will allow for higher voltage and making profit.
Optimizing the choice of factors such as voltage, direct or alternating current, distance to shore, and placement of cables (the “blood system” of a wind farm) to minimize losses – all of that ultimately boils down to combinatorics problems, and therefore it is natural to involve AI in their solution.
The main conclusion reached by the scientists is that scaling up offshore wind energy systems is possible, meaning the creation of giant offshore wind farms generating significant amounts of electricity is possible. Of course, direct current will most likely be used for transmission. However, combining alternating and direct current at different stages, cable configuration, and optimal wind turbine placement cannot not be calculated efficiently enough by humans, but are quite manageable by specially trained neural networks.
What are the prospects of the use of offshore wind energy in Russia? It turns out that it is necessary not only for generating green electricity but also for ensuring the safety of nuclear power plants.
“In Russia, Rosatom state corporation is the leader in the wind energy sector development, owning over 2 gigawatts of wind farm capacity, primarily in the southern regions of our country, such as Krasnodar Territory and Crimea,” shares Professor Evgeniy Solomin. “Currently, there are no offshore wind farms in Russia, but Rosatom is preparing a long-term program for the construction of new nuclear power plants. These plants, according to requirements, should have a long-term backup power source to maintain the heating of the electrodes, and precisely for that a wind farm would be a perfect solution.”
Offshore wind farms prove to be more efficient than those onshore.
“Experience shows that offshore wind farms generate 15-20% more power than onshore wind farms thanks to the absence of obstacles and reduced wind friction on water surface,” states Professor Evgeniy Solomin. “Furthermore, any nuclear power plant requires cooling, which can be effectively implemented in close proximity to the sea. Therefore, the location of nuclear power plants with local cooling and backup power from offshore wind farms is a highly attractive and promising project.”
The deployment of wind farms in the Pacific and Arctic Oceans will accelerate the development of Russia’s Far North. However, development of the Arctic has shown that electricity generation in these conditions is not only difficult, but in some places impossible due to the difficulty of transporting fuel. The only solution for generating electricity in these conditions are wind farms, which can be built on the coast, including to service navigation along the Northern Sea Route.