Techno-Economic Analysis of Offshore Wind Farms Connected to Superconducting MVDC Cables

As society moves from fossil fueled generated energy to renewable energy to offset climate change, there will be a growth in offshore wind generation. Transferring the large amounts of energy generated offshore to onshore may be aided by the use of superconducting cables. The use of lower voltage superconducting cables for the transmission could facilitate the use of alternative wind farm topologies. This paper compares several DC wind farm topologies connected to a DC superconducting cable with a base case AC/HVDC wind farm in terms of the levelized cost of energy (LCOE). The results show that as the wind farm capacity increases, a dispersed parallel topology becomes the most economical choice while the traditional AC wind farm is most optimal for lower power capacities.