HVDC4ISLANDS

Title:

HVDC and Hybrid DC/AC Technologies for Reconfigurable Energy Islands (HVDC4ISLANDS)

Start Year:

2024     

End Year:

2028

Funding Body:

SEAI (European Clean Energy Transition Partnership)

Research partner/host:

MaREI, the SFI Research Centre for Energy, Climate and Marine, Environmental Research Institute, UCC, Ireland.

School of Engineering and Architecture, UCC, Ireland. 

Project Partners:

IMDEA Energy (Spain), National Technical University of Athens (Greece), RWTH Aachen (Germany), SINTEF (Norway), Austrian Institute of Technology (Austria), Fronius (Austria), Subsea7 (Luxembourg) and Hystar (Norway)

Research Area:

Power Systems, Power Electronics, Offshore Renewable Energy

Principal Investigator:

Barry Hayes

Introduction

Future plans for construction of both onshore and offshore Energy Islands assume a whole set of new design and operational challenges based on the inherent flexibility of High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) and hybrid Direct Current/Alternating Current (DC/AC) network technologies. The conventional approach to integration of renewable sources uses either their direct connection to AC grids or an application of point-to-point, single vendor HVDC solutions. Expandable and reconfigurable Energy Islands as a validated concept will represent a unique solution that combines technological and market aspects of energy production and multi-vector demand with the availability of renewable sources.

The aim of HVDC4ISLANDS is to address and improve principal operational and economic aspects of Energy Islands and to introduce the necessary concept of expandability to HVDC and hybrid DC/AC systems. New solutions for control, operation and protection of multi-terminal hybrid DC/AC grids will be sought and then validated using hardware-in-the-loop approaches. Offshore platforms acting as Energy Islands already generate large amounts of renewable energy, typically through offshore wind farms, and use it to power surrounding regions. There are several planned projects in Europe to construct such islands in order to reduce carbon emissions and meet climate targets. HVDC4ISLANDS aims to address the objectives defined in the Joint Clean Energy Transition Partnership Call Module CM2023-01 Direct current (DC) technologies for power networks” and to respond to the main research and innovation gaps and challenges identified in the framework of Europe’s Strategic Energy Technology (SET) plan.

MaREI leads Work Package 6 of the project on “Network Configuration, Energy Management, Techno-Economic-Environmental Analysis and Market Integration Mechanisms”

Work Packages

Work Package 1: Reporting and Knowledge Community

Work Package 2: Energy Island Topologies and their Digital Twin

Work Package 3: Control and Stability Aspects and Provision of Grid Services

Work Package 4: Offshore Renewables, Battery Storage and Hydrogen Integration

Work Package 5: Protection Integration and Expansion

Work Package 6: Network Configuration, Energy Management, Techno-Economic-Environmental Analysis and Market Integration Mechanisms

Work Package 7: Project Coordination, Dissemination and Communication

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