Offshore Wind Farm Training

Offshore Wind Farm Training

Offshore wind farming has emerged as a crucial solution in the push for sustainable energy, primarily due to advances in technology, which serves a pivotal role in enhancing the efficiency, scalability, and cost-effectiveness of offshore wind farms.

One important technology driving the industry forward is turbine design and materials.

The development of larger, more efficient turbines has revolutionized offshore wind energy. Modern offshore wind turbines, like those from Siemens Gamesa and GE Renewable Energy, are designed with longer blades and higher capacity generators, enabling them to capture more wind and generate more power.

These turbines are being constructed from lighter, stronger materials, such as carbon fiber composites, which reduce weight while maintaining structural integrity. With turbines growing in size and efficiency, offshore wind farms can now produce more energy with fewer units, reducing both costs and environmental impact.

One of the most significant technological breakthroughs for offshore wind farming is the development of floating wind turbines. These turbines can be installed in deep waters where traditional fixed-bottom turbines cannot reach. By floating on the surface of the ocean, these turbines have the ability to capture wind energy in previously untapped locations, significantly expanding the potential for offshore wind farms.

Companies like Equinor and Ideol are leading the way with these floating platforms, and their success could pave the way for massive new offshore wind farms.

Then there’s offshore wind farm monitoring systems. With the complexity of offshore operations, real-time monitoring is critical for optimizing the performance of wind farms. Advanced sensor technologies and Internet of Things (IoT) systems are now being deployed to monitor the health of turbines, track weather patterns, and predict maintenance needs.

This allows operators to perform predictive maintenance, reduce downtime, and increase the lifespan of turbines. AI-driven analytics are also playing a key role in improving performance by optimizing wind farm layouts and operations based on real-time data.

Additionally, energy storage technologies are essential for the future of offshore wind farming, as wind energy production is intermittent. High-efficiency batteries and other storage solutions, like pumped hydro and compressed air energy storage, are helping to store excess energy produced during peak wind periods. This stored energy can then be used during lulls in wind production, ensuring a stable and reliable power supply to the grid.

Experts in this area contend that in the future, we can expect several exciting technologies to impact offshore wind farming. One of these is advanced robotics for turbine maintenance, which could significantly reduce the need for costly and dangerous human intervention.

Another promising technology is artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, which could help improve wind forecasting and optimize turbine operation in real-time. Finally, hybrid renewable energy systems that combine offshore wind with solar, tidal, or wave energy will create more versatile and reliable power solutions.

As technology continues to evolve, the future of offshore wind farming looks brighter than ever. These innovations not only promise to increase energy output but will also make offshore wind a more affordable and dependable source of renewable energy.

Offshore Wind Farm Training Course by Tonex

The Offshore Wind Farm Training course will help you to understand the technological developments of offshore wind farms, different types of wind turbines implemented for offshore projects, control of offshore wind farms, protection and reliability assessment of offshore wind technologies.

Offshore Wind Farm Training course teaches you the history of offshore wind farms and real world projects operating based on offshore wind farms nowadays. Moreover, you will be introduced to the recent wind turbine technologies and their architectures, transmission network used for offshore wind farms, reliability and stability issues related to offshore wind farms, reactive power and voltage support, and operation of offshore wind farms during different wind speed operating points. The course will then focus on the main type of wind turbine which is widely used in the power system industry which is the doubly fed induction generator (DFIG) based wind turbine.

By taking the Offshore Wind Farm Training course, you will understand the main components of an offshore wind farm including: turbine and blades, substations, wind towers, foundations, transformers, helipads, switchgears, crane, backup generators, marine cables, and control room. This course will also help you to understand the basics of induction generators as the main components of wind farms, power electronic based wind turbine generators, protections implemented for different types of faults in offshore wind farms and effect of faults on the wind turbines. The audience in the offshore wind farm training course will also learn about:

• Crowbars in DFIGs
• Back to back converters in DFIGs
• Gear box in offshore wind farms
• Wind turbines
• Modeling of DFIG in abc and dq frames
• Unbalanced operation of offshore wind farms
• Average modeling of wind farms
• Considering the DC side dynamics in offshore wind farms
• Active and reactive power control in offshore wind farms
• Pitch angle control of wind turbines
• Fault ride through capability of offshore wind farms
• HVDC and HVAC transmission systems in offshore wind farms
• VSC-HVDC transmission in offshore wind farms
• Energy storage systems in offshore wind farms
• Smart grids in offshore wind farms
• Phasor measurement units for offshore wind farms

Finally, the Offshore Wind Farm Training course will introduce the protection and reliability assessment of offshore wind farm by including the topics such as: Wind turbine protections, Feeder protection, transmission protection, and earth faults in offshore wind farms.

Audience

The offshore wind farm training is a 2-day course designed for:

• All individuals who need to understand the offshore wind farms from generation to consumption.
• Renewable energy utility engineers
• Test engineers
• Engineers seeking Ph.D. and graduate studies focused on renewable energies and microgrids
• Power traders to understand the offshore wind farm systems
• Independent system operator personnel
• Faculty members from academic institutes who want to teach the offshore wind farm course
• Investors and contractors who plan to make investments in renewable energy industry.
• Professionals in other energy industries
• Marketing people who need to know the background of the products they sell
• Electric utility personnel who recently started career in power systems or having new job responsibilities
• Technicians, operators, and maintenance personnel who are or will be working on renewable energy related projects
• Managers, accountants, and executives of power system industry
• Scientist or non-electrical engineers involved in smart grid related projects or proposals

Training Objectives

Upon completion of the offshore wind farm training course, the attendees are able to:

• Understand the history and background of offshore wind farms
• Explain the different types of wind turbines in offshore wind farms
• Describe the operation of offshore wind farms
• Understand the different types of transmission systems in offshore wind farms
• Explain the protections implemented for different parts of offshore wind farms
• Understand the control of offshore wind farms
• Design an offshore wind farm for a real world project
• Tackle the problems related to unbalance and faults in offshore wind farms
• Combine the concept of offshore wind farms into the microgrids.
• Design the advanced control algorithms for offshore wind turbine projects

Training Outline

The offshore wind farm training course consists of the following lessons, which can be revised and tailored to the client’s need:

Introduction

• Development of offshore wind farms
• Wind turbine
• Installation and commissioning
• Operations and maintenance
• Offshore wind resource
• GIS database
• Database components
• Wind resource estimates
• Distance from shore

Introduction to Wind Energy Systems

• Background and history
• Wind turbine technology
• Architectures of wind turbines
• Offshore wind turbine architecture
• Transmission network in offshore wind farm
• Solution of High Voltage Direct current (HVDC)
• Impact of offshore wind farms in power systems
• Dynamic stability of offshore wind farms
• Reactive power and voltage support
• Power and frequency support
• Inertial response of a wind turbines
• Effect of wind speed in wind turbines
• Different types of wind turbines
• Doubly Fed Induction Generators (DFIG)

Main Components of An Offshore Wind Farm

• Wind turbines
• Substations
• Towers
• Foundations
• Transformers
• Helipad
• Switchgear
• Crane
• Backup generator
• Cable supports
• Main structure
• Control room

Wind Turbines Based On DFIG

• Basics of induction generators
• Principals of DFIGs
• Effect of power electronic converters
• Back to back converters in DFIG
• Gearbox
• Protection during faults
• Crowbar implementation
• Effect of three phase faults
• Turbine
• Modeling of DFIGs
• DFIG modeling in abc reference frame
• DFIG modeling in dg reference frame
• Dynamic response
• Modeling in unbalanced conditions
• Mechanical system modeling
• Converter modeling
• Average modeling of converters
• Modeling the dc circuit

Control Of Wind Turbines

• Voltage source converters
• Pulse Width Modulation (PWM)
• Rotor speed control
• Reactive power control
• Active power control
• Rotor current control
• DC voltage control
• Grid side current control
• Vector control in DFIG
• Maximum power point controller
• Pitch angle control
• Fault ride through capability
• Crowbar protection
• Blade pitch angle control
• Blade twist control
• Variable diameter rotor
• Active flow control

Transmission And Compensation In Offshore Wind Farm

• Electrical collectors
• Wind farm clusters
• HVAC transmission
• HVDC transmission
• Current source and voltage source converters in HVDC
• Multi-terminal HVDC systems
• Reactive power compensation
• Static VAR compensation
• Static Compensator (STATCOM)
• Underground cables
• VSC-HVDC transmission systems
• Point to point connection of offshore wind farms
• Offshore wind farms using HVAC
• Multi-terminal HVDC based offshore wind farms
• Control of offshore wind farms based on HVDC transmission
• Energy storage systems
• Super capacitors
• Flywheel storage system
• Hydro storage
• Phasor measurement units
• Power electronic conditioning monitoring

Protection Of Offshore Wind Farms

• Wind generation protection
• Feeder protection
• Busbar protection
• High voltage transformer protection
• Faults in transmission lines
• DC connection protection in offshore wind farms
• VSC-HVDC protection
• Earth faults in offshore wind farm

Offshore Wind Farm Training