Subsea reactive power compensation for offshore wind

The feasibility of using subsea shunt reactors to counteract reactive power generated by cable capacitance in AC connection of offshore wind farms is investigated through a system study of the energization of the export cable. Subsea installation would reduce cost and material usage as compared to fixed or floating platforms. The lack of subsea switchgear at typical export cable voltage levels then implies that all grid operations would have to be performed without switching at the intermediate reactive power compensation stations, instead being limited to switching at export cable endpoints at the onshore and offshore transformer stations. 300 Mvar subsea shunt reactors are considered feasible with electrical, mechanical and thermal design constraints and reliability requirements from a…