This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been

fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TSTE.2017.2703879, IEEE
Transactions on Sustainable Energy
1

Analysis of Series-DC Offshore Wind Plants with

Aerodynamic Wake Effects
Michael H. Johnson, Student Member, IEEE, and Dionysios C. Aliprantis, Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract—In series-dc wind plants, variations in power output P,P∗ Vector of turbine power outputs and optimal
among turbines due to aerodynamic effects may lead to violations setpoints.
of operational limits of electric machines and power electronic Pm Generator mechanical power input.
converters. Turbine wakes constitute the predominant cause
of such variations. It is therefore imperative to incorporate R Generator stator winding resistance.
wake models during analysis of wind plant-level issues and r Turbine rotor radius.
control strategies. In this paper, two candidate energy conver- rw Aerodynamic wake radius.
sion configurations previously proposed for series-dc connected s, s∗ Vector of optimization decision variables and
turbines are considered. They are analyzed in the context of a optimal solution.
notional offshore wind plant using the Jensen wake model. An
optimization problem is formulated for maximizing total plant S Optimization feasible set.
power output. A key finding is that this objective is attainable Te , Te∗ Generator electromagnetic torque and com-
without any turbine violating operational limits for arbitrary manded value.
wind direction and speed. This, however, may require variation Vdc Transmission voltage.
of transmission voltage or current as a function of prevailing Vt Turbine dc terminal voltage.
wind conditions by means of the onshore converter interfacing
the plant with the terrestrial power grid. Vq , Vd Generator terminal qd voltages.
Vqtr , Vdtr Transformer qd voltages.
Index Terms—AC-DC power converters, HVDC transmission, vw Effective turbine wind speed.
permanent-magnet machines, power conversion, wind energy,
wind power generation. v∞ , ~v∞ Upstream wind speed magnitude and vector.
w Wake deficit factor.
x Downwind distance between turbines.
N OMENCLATURE z Wake shadow geometry parameter.
α Wake expansion coefficient.
β Turbine blade pitch angle. I. I NTRODUCTION
λ Turbine tip-speed ratio. FFSHORE wind projects have been trending upward in
λm Generator flux-linkage due to permanent mag-
nets.
O power capacity and distance from shore [1]. In 2015,
the average distance to shore of new European offshore wind
ρ Air density. plants was 43.3 km, a 31.6% increase from 2014 [2]. At these
φ Wind direction angle. distances, high-voltage dc (HVDC) transmission becomes eco-
ψ Partial shadow area. nomical. At the sending end of an HVDC transmission line,
ω Rotor mechanical angular velocity. an offshore platform that houses transformers, switchgear, and
a Shadow area. power electronics is present, accounting for roughly 10% of
b Wake shadow geometry parameter. the wind plant’s construction costs [3], [4]. In order to reduce
Cf Filter capacitance. costs by eliminating the offshore platform, series-dc collection
Cp Turbine power coefficient. has been proposed as an alternative means to incrementally
Ct Turbine thrust coefficient. build the required voltage level for HVDC transmission to
d Lateral distance between turbines. shore [3]–[13]. This architecture is shown in Fig. 1.
Ib Branch current. In the series-dc wind plant architecture, series-connected
Idc Transmission current. turbines share the same dc current. This implies that the
Iq , Id Generator qd currents. voltage at the dc terminals of a turbine will depend on the
Iqcsc , Idcsc Current-source converter qd currents. electric power output of every turbine in the branch. Moreover,
Lq , Ld Generator qd inductances. if the wind plant has multiple branches of series-connected
L′tr Referred transformer leakage inductance. turbines, branches producing more power will carry higher
N Transformer voltage ratio. currents. The electric power output of turbines is directly
Nt Number of turbines. linked to the local wind speed, which varies significantly
p Number of generator pole-pairs. across a wind plant. This can be attributed predominantly to
P Generator electrical power output. turbine wakes, which are particularly persistent offshore [14].
Wind conditions can easily arise that could lead to voltages
M. H. Johnson and D. C. Aliprantis are with the School of Electrical and
Computer Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907 USA and/or currents exceeding their safe limits or dropping below
e-mail: {mhjohnson, dionysis}@purdue.edu. minimum required levels for normal operation.

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2

1 2 n
... α
1

1 Idc
rw,ij

+ DC wake
2 Turbine j
Vdc Grid
bij
− AC
...

...

...
Ib1 Ib2 Ibn dij
to shore Onshore aij
Substation
m rotor disk
... Turbine i
r
wind flow
Figure 1. Electrical schematic of a series-dc wind plant with n branches of
m series-connected turbines.
xij zij

This issue with series-dc connected turbines has been inves- Figure 2. Partial shadowing of turbine i by the wake of turbine j. (The
tigated recently by [9]–[12]. In [9] and [11], which consider a distance between the turbines is not drawn to scale.)
single branch of series-connected turbines with current-source
converters, a current control strategy is designed guaranteeing to be continuously varied based on prevailing wind conditions
that all converters will operate above their respective minimum to ensure maximum energy extraction from the wind.
current limits (which depend on power output). However, the
control was not analyzed in the context of larger wind plants II. M ODELING P RELIMINARIES
containing multiple branches in parallel. In [10], a multi- The equations in this section are based on quasi steady-state
branch wind plant with matrix converter-based turbines is conditions, i.e., at constant wind speed, rotor speed, torque,
considered. The main focus is computing the power setpoints and power output, which is sufficient to capture the operating
of individual turbines based on an optimal load flow that characteristics of interest.
minimizes network losses. In addition, voltage constraints are
imposed at the turbine terminals, but these are not obtained A. Wake Model
from a rigorous modeling of the electric machines and con- Aerodynamic wakes are represented using the Jensen
verters. In [12], it is proposed that the collection system of a model [15], which has been found to yield good agreement
multi-branch wind plant can be dynamically reconfigured by with field measurements in offshore wind plants [16]. Fig. 2
switching actions. This approach attempts to mitigate over- illustrates a situation where the wake of turbine j affects the
voltages that would occur once a turbine abruptly disconnects operation of turbine i in accordance with the assumptions
due to a failure, but it is not tailored to the continuous voltage made by the Jensen model. As the wake expands, turbulent
fluctuations taking place under normal operating conditions. diffusion facilitates momentum transfer with the undisturbed
Lastly, it should be noted that the technical analysis within wind stream, causing the wind speed in the wake to gradually
the volume of existing literature on this topic [3]–[13] has not recover [14]. The radius of the wake rw is assumed to expand
thus far incorporated models of aerodynamic wake effects. linearly with downwind distance x, such that rw = r + αx
The contributions of this paper are twofold: First, the paper where r is the radius of the turbine rotor and α is the wake
sets forth a method to embed the effects of aerodynamic wakes expansion constant.
in series-dc wind plant models with sufficiently detailed power The individual wake deficit factor from turbine j to i is
electronics and electric machinery representations to capture aij
 q 
interactions of interest. In particular, we derive operational wij = 2 · 1 − 1 − Ct (λj , βj ) (1)
πrw,ij
limits of two alternative power electronic configurations that
have been proposed for series-dc wind power plants, namely, where aij is the area of the rotor disk of turbine i that intersects
voltage-source and current-source converters. These are then the wake of turbine j, Ct is the thrust coefficient of turbine j,
combined with system-level constraints stemming from the and rw,ij = r+αxij . Assuming all hub heights of the turbines
electrical connection and the wake effects within the wind are the same,

plant. Wind conditions where turbines may operate near con- 0,
 dij ≥ 2r + αxij
verter limits are identified. This could inform initial component aij = πr2 , dij ≤ αxij (2)
sizing and plant layout design. Second, and as a direct result of 
ψ, otherwise

employing the preceding modeling framework, we investigate
the role of the onshore converter that interfaces with the where
   
terrestrial power grid. A key finding is that an appropriate 2 −1 bij 2 −1 dij − bij dij zij
control strategy could be necessary to avoid curtailing power ψ= rw,ij cos + r cos −
rw,ij r 2
output. System-level transmission voltage or current may need (3)

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3

and dij , bij , and zij are defined as shown in Fig. 2. The thrust
coefficient Ct (λ, β) is a function of blade pitch angle β and 4
turbine tip-speed ratio λ. For turbine i,
r ωi 3
λi = (4)

Te∗ (MN m)
vw,i
ω
where ωi is the mechanical angular velocity of its rotor. 2
Finally, the local wind speed at turbine i, vw,i , is related to the
ω
undisturbed wind speed upstream of the wind plant, v∞ , which
1
is scaled by an aggregate wind speed deficit factor caused by
the wakes of all Nt turbines,
 qP  0
Nt 2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4
vw,i = v∞ · 1 − j=1 ij .
w (5)
ω (rad/s)
Figure 3. Generator torque control strategy Te∗ (ω). (For turbine parameters
B. Wind Turbine Model see the Appendix.)
This paper considers direct-drive permanent-magnet syn-
5
chronous generator (PMSG)-based turbines. In general, the
turbine rotor speed is regulated by adjusting the blade pitch P
4
angle β and the electromagnetic torque Te of the generator to
achieve a desired power output.

P (MW)
3
The electromagnetic torque of turbine i, Te,i , tracks a torque ω
command Te∗ that is a function of the rotor speed ωi , 2
ω
Te,i = Te∗ (ωi ) (6)
1
as shown in Fig. 3, which graphically defines this control law.
Under steady-state conditions, the rotor speed satisfies 0
0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4
ω ≤ ωi ≤ ω . (7)
ω (rad/s)
This torque command is tracked by controlling the generator Figure 4. Generator electrical power P (ω).
currents at a time scale much shorter than the time constant
of the rotor speed dynamics. The steady-state model of gen-
erator i comprises the following three equations [17], the electrical power is shown in Fig. 4. It is convenient to
define P as the electric power output at rated speed, ω.
Vq,i = −RIq,i + p ωi (λm − Ld Id,i ) (8)
Given vw,i and ωi , the previous system of equations may
Vd,i = −RId,i + p ωi Lq Iq,i (9) also be solved for the blade pitch angle βi .1 The solution
3 should satisfy physical bounds on βi ,
Te,i = p [λm Iq,i + (Lq − Ld ) Iq,i Id,i ] (10)
2
where p is the number of pole pairs. The qd electrical quanti- β ≤ βi ≤ β (14)
ties are in the rotor reference frame with Park’s transformation
defined as in [17]. Generator convention is used for the otherwise it is infeasible.
currents (so that power and torque are positive for generator
action). Current commands are selected to satisfy (10) while
being restricted to the maximum torque per ampere curve C. Converter Models

2 2 λm Several power converter topologies have been proposed for

Iq,i = Id,i + Id,i (11) series-dc collection. The two considered in this paper are the
Lq − Ld
voltage-source converter (VSC) [18] and the current-source
to minimize ohmic loss in the windings. Neglecting frictional
converter (CSC) [9], [11], [19], whose most basic topologies
loss, the electrical power generated by turbine i is
are shown in Fig. 5. In these configurations, an isolation
3 2 2

transformer is placed between the generator and the converter.
Pi = Pm,i − R Iq,i + Id,i . (12)
2 These converters are common in industrial applications, with
The mechanical power at the shaft of turbine i is the VSC being widely used by the wind industry [20]. In
1 addition, the VSC could have a multilevel architecture, thus
Pm,i = ωi Te,i = ρπr2 Cp (λi , βi ) vw,i
3
(13) representing a feasible solution for the medium voltage levels
2
encountered in series-dc collection.
where ρ is the air density and Cp is the power coefficient of the
turbine. Using (6)–(13), it is possible to calculate any electrical 1 It should be noted that a solution may not exist for certain combinations
quantity as a function of rotor speed. For illustration purposes, of vw,i and ωi that cause ωi Te,i > maxβ 21 ρπr 2 Cp (λi , β) vw,i
3 .

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6 16

Ib 1 11 21
+
Vtr 7D 7 17
V
Vt 7D φ
PMSG
I 12 22 ~
v∞
− 2 0◦
1:N 8 18

VSC 3 13 23
N
(a) 9 19
W E

1D
4 14 24

12.
Ib 1 km S
+ 10 20
V Vtr Icsc 12.1D
PMSG Vt 5 15 25
I Branch: 1 2 3 4 5
Cf −
1:N
CSC Figure 6. Spatial layout of wind turbines in case study.

(b)
Figure 5. Wind turbine electrical topologies for series-dc collection using To protect the VSC switches from over-voltage conditions,
(a) voltage-source converters and (b) current-source converters. we impose the constraint
Vt,i ≤ Vt . (20)
The network side of converter i has a dc terminal voltage
Vt,i and a branch current Ib,i . Neglecting the resistance of the The upper bound is determined based on the nominal turbine
collection system conductors, Vt,i and Ib,i are voltage, and includes a suitable safety factor.
2) CSC: The operating principle of the CSC is based on
Pi pulse width modulating a dc current to generate alternating
Vt,i (P , Vdc ) = P Vdc , j ∈ Bi (15)
Pj currents [21]. Filter capacitors are required because of the
Pj
j Pj inductive nature of the generator; these are placed as shown in
Ib,i (P , Idc ) = PNt Idc , j ∈ Bi (16) Fig. 5b. When using space vector modulation, the dc branch
k=1 Pk
current must be greater than the peak of the synthesized phase
where P = [P1 . . . PNt ] is a vector of turbine power outputs, current [21], i.e.,
Vdc and Idc are transmission voltage and current, and Bi is the q
2
Ib,i ≥ Iqcsc,i 2
+ Idcsc,i (21)
set of turbines in the same branch as turbine i.
Each topology has a distinct set of operational constraints
taking the form of inequalities relating electrical variables. where
These constraints limit the operational area of the turbines. We ′
Iqcsc,i = Iq,i − p ωi Cf Vdtr,i (22)
proceed by deriving analytic expressions for the constraints ′
Idcsc,i = Id,i + p ωi Cf Vqtr,i (23)
of each topology. Numerical results will be presented in
Section III. are the CSC phase currents and Cf is the equivalent wye-
1) VSC: The VSC configuration is shown in Fig. 5a. As- connected filter capacitance. Vqtr,i and Vdtr,i are the trans-
suming the converter is controlled using space vector modula- former voltages from (18) and (19).
tion, the dc voltage at the terminals of turbine i, Vt,i , should To protect the CSC switches from over-current conditions,
not be less than the peak of the line-to-line voltage [17], i.e., we impose the constraint
r 
Ib,i ≤ Ib

2 +V2
Vt,i ≥ 3 Vqtr,i (17) (24)
dtr,i
where Ib is determined based on the nominal branch current,
where Vqtr,i and Vdtr,i are the transformer secondary voltages2 . and incorporates a suitable safety factor.
These are equal to
′
Vqtr,i = Vq,i − p ωi L′tr Id,i
′
(18) III. W IND P LANT O PERATION
′
Vdtr,i = Vd,i + p ωi L′tr Iq,i
′
(19) A notional 125-MW offshore wind plant consisting of 25
NREL 5-MW reference turbines [22] is considered in this
where L′tr represents the total transformer leakage inductance
′ ′ paper. The turbines are positioned using a regular staggered
and Vq,i and Vd,i are the referred generator voltages from
pattern with a minimum spacing of 7 rotor diameters D
(8) and (9). The winding resistance and magnetizing current
(D = 2r), as shown in Fig. 6. Each north-south column is
of the transformer have been neglected. The primes signify
a branch of five series-connected turbines, resulting in five
values that have been referred to the secondary winding of
parallel-connected branches. All study parameters are listed
the transformer using its voltage ratio N .
in the Appendix. It was assumed that all transformers, power
2 Secondary refers to the converter side of the transformer, whereas primary electronics, and conductors were lossless. Turbine yaw error
refers to the generator side. was neglected.

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A. Converter-Agnostic Power Output Maximization
A primary operational objective is to maximize total power
production. This requires the modification of turbine operating
points based on prevailing wind conditions, captured by an
upstream wind vector ~v∞ = v∞ φ (see Fig. 6). The wind
direction angle φ affects the equations of the Jensen wake
model, because the geometric variables x, d, b, and z (see
Fig. 2) depend on φ (and the plant layout).
The optimal operating points are obtained by solving the
following nonlinear constrained optimization problem:
maximize f (s) = P1 + · · · + PNt
s (25)
subject to s∈S
where
s = [w λ β ω vw Te Iq Id Pm P ]
S = {s : (1)–(7), (10)–(14), i = 1, 2, . . . , Nt }
The decision variables in the vector s include turbine me-
chanical and electrical quantities. Note that converter operating
limits are not imposed, hence (8) and (9) are not included in
the constraint set S. We denote the solution by s∗ (v∞ , φ)3 .
The problem was solved for all wind conditions of interest
using the GlobalSearch algorithm available in Matlab [23].
The wind speed v∞ was swept from 4 m/s to 14 m/s in 1 m/s
increments. At v∞ = 14 m/s, all wind turbines operate at rated
power. Due to the mirror symmetry of the wind plant about the
north-south axis, φ was only swept from 0◦ (from the north)
to 180◦ (from the south) in 1◦ increments. This discretization
resulted in 11·181 = 1991 independent optimization problems.
In view of (26), the number of decision variables was 10Nt =
250. The optimization problems were solved on a workstation
with an Intel Xeon E5-2687W v2 processor at 3.4 GHz. The
calculations were parallelized on all 8 cores of the computer.
The GlobalSearch algorithm is a multiple starting point solver,
and was configured for 4000 starting points. This led to a total
computing time of approximately 14 days.
Fig. 7 shows the optimal plant power production vs. φ for
v∞ ∈ {7, 9, 11, 13} m/s. As expected, power increases with
v∞ , and by 13 m/s all of the turbines are operating at rated
power for all but a few values of φ. Large power dips are ob-
served at φ = 0◦ , 60◦ , 120◦ , and 180◦ . These are the values of
φ where the turbines are aligned with the minimum 7D spacing
(see Fig. 6), where the wake effect is strongest. Comparatively
smaller dips occur at 30◦ , 90◦ , and 150◦ , which correspond
to 12.1D spacing.
B. Consideration of Generator-Converter Limitations
In the previous section, optimal turbine operating points
were determined without considering the limitations imposed
by the generator-converter system. Now, the focus shifts to
satisfying these operational limits as well, namely, (17) and
(20) for the turbine terminal voltage in the VSC case, or (21)
3 The equations forming the feasible set S are not affected by the type
of collection system employed. Hence, this problem formulation is also
applicable to conventional wind plants with ac collection systems.
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5
125
13 m/s
wind plant power (MW)
100
75 11 m/s
50
9 m/s
25
7 m/s
0
0◦ 30◦ 60◦ 90◦ 120◦ 150◦ 180◦
φ
Figure 7. Optimal wind plant power production.
and (24) for the branch current in the CSC case, while simulta-
(26)
neously maximizing power production. According to (15) and
(27) (16), these quantities depend on P ∗ (v∞ , φ) and Vdc or Idc ,
respectively for the two cases. Since P ∗ is fixed, determining
the turbine terminal voltages or the branch currents becomes
a single degree-of-freedom problem.
1) VSC-Based Plant: Operational limits for the VSC-based
turbine are depicted on the P -Vt plane in Fig. 8. The minimum
voltage constraint (17) was calculated by solving the set of
equations (6)–(13) (to find all turbine electrical quantities over
the operating range) combined with (17)–(19) (accounting for
transformer voltage drop).
Given P ∗ (v∞ , φ) and Vdc , the plot can be populated with
the turbine operating points. An example is provided in Fig. 9
for v∞ = 10 m/s, φ ∈ [0◦ , 180◦ ], and Vdc = 77.5 kV.
According to (15), adjusting Vdc has the effect of shifting the
points up or down. Hence, upper and lower bounds for Vdc
can be readily obtained. These are denoted by Vdc (v∞ , φ) and
Vdc (v∞ , φ), respectively.
Fig. 10 illustrates Vdc (v∞ , φ) and Vdc (v∞ , φ) for v∞ ∈
{10, 11, 12, 13} m/s and φ ∈ [0◦ , 180◦ ]. The lower bounds
are relatively smooth, whereas the upper bounds exhibit sharp
dips at the wind directions where wake effects are strongest.
Up to approximately 11 m/s, Vdc increases with v∞ , while Vdc
does not change. Above 11 m/s, the situation reverses with Vdc
increasing, while Vdc remains relatively unchanged.
The quantity Vdc (v∞ , φ) − Vdc (v∞ , φ) is particularly impor-
tant because it is related to the likelihood of turbines exceeding
limits during wind transients. It is minimum at v∞ ≈ 11 m/s
and φ in the region of 60◦ and 120◦ . This is shown more
clearly in Fig. 11. The minimum gap is approximately 7 kV.
2) CSC-Based Plant: The permissible operating region of
the CSC-based turbine is shown on the P -Ib plane in Fig. 12.
Similarly to the VSC case, the operating region narrows as
wind speed increases due to an increasing minimum current
requirement, which is obtained by (21) in conjunction with
(6)–(13), (18), (19), (22), and (23).
In the CSC-based plant, the onshore converter controls
the transmission current Idc . Upper and lower current limits,
Idc (v∞ , φ) and Idc (v∞ , φ), are calculated in a similar manner
to the VSC case, using (16). These are depicted in Fig. 13 for
v∞ ∈ {10, 11, 12, 13} m/s and φ ∈ [0◦ , 180◦ ]. The difference
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6

300
25 (24)
(20) P
20 P

Ib (A)
200
Vt (kV)

15

10 100
(21)
5 (17)
0
0 0 1 2 3 4 5
0 1 2 3 4 5
P (MW)
P (MW)
Figure 12. Operational limits of CSC-based turbine on power-current plane.
Figure 8. Operational limits of VSC-based turbine on power-voltage plane.
1.75 13 m/s
12 m/s
25
1.5
20

Idc (kA)
Vt (kV)

15 1.25 10, 11 m/s

10 13 m/s
1 12 m/s
5 11 m/s
0.75 10 m/s
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 0◦ 30◦ 60◦ 90◦ 120◦ 150◦ 180◦
P (MW) φ
Figure 9. Turbine operating points: v∞ = 10 m/s, φ ∈ [0◦ , 180◦ ], Vdc = Figure 13. Idc limits for CSC-based plant.
77.5 kV.

140
1.6
13 m/s
120
1.4
Idc (kA)

Vdc 12 m/s
Vdc (kV)

100
10, 11 m/s 1.2
80 13 m/s
12 m/s 1
60 Vdc 11 m/s
10 m/s 0.8
40 0◦ 30◦ 60◦ 90◦ 120◦ 150◦ 180◦
0◦ 30◦ 60◦ 90◦ 120◦ 150◦ 180◦ φ
φ Figure 14. Idc limits for CSC-based plant vs. φ at v∞ = 11 m/s.
Figure 10. Vdc limits for VSC-based plant.

140 Idc (v∞ , φ) − Idc (v∞ , φ) reaches a minimum of approximately

130 200 A at 11 m/s and φ = 60◦ , 120◦ , as shown in Fig. 14.
120
C. Operational Impacts of Wind Direction
110
Vdc (kV)

100
The considerable narrowing of the bounds at a certain
wind speed (here, 11 m/s) and certain wind directions (here,
90
φ = 60◦ , 120◦ ) is a concern, because wind fluctuations could
80 lead to temporary violations of the generator-converter limits.
70 In general, this phenomenon will occur at wind directions
60 corresponding to the minimum spacing of the turbines, where
0◦ 30◦ 60◦ 90◦ 120◦ 150◦ 180◦ the wake effect is strongest. However, spacing is not the only
φ consideration. In this case study, the wind directions 0◦ and
Figure 11. Vdc limits for VSC-based plant vs. φ at v∞ = 11 m/s. 180◦ (which are operationally identical) also correspond to
minimum spacing, but the bounds are not as narrow as at 60◦

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and 120◦ . To investigate further, the operation of the plant at

branch 1 2 3 4 5
0◦ and 60◦ is compared in more detail. The 180◦ and 120◦
5
cases are not examined since they represent similar conditions.
The optimum turbine outputs P ∗ (11 m/s, 60◦ ) are depicted
in Fig. 15, where branch and turbine numbering is defined in 4

P (MW)
Fig. 6. In branches 2 and 4, the northernmost turbines 6 and 16
experience the full 11 m/s, whereas the other turbines 7–10 and
17–20 lie in the wakes of turbines to their northeast. The result 3
is that turbines 6 and 16 produce significantly more power than
the other turbines in their branch, and thus experience higher
2
voltages due to (15). This is shown in Fig. 16, which depicts 0 5 10 15 20 25
this situation in the case of a VSC-based plant. Furthermore, turbine
note that turbines 21–25 in branch 5 experience the full 11 m/s.
Figure 15. Turbine power setpoints P ∗ (11 m/s, 60◦ ).
Hence, each turbine is producing high power in roughly equal
proportion so the voltages in branch 5 are moderate. This branch 1 2 3 4 5
explains why the envelope is narrow: if Vdc is increased,
turbines 6 and 16 will exceed the maximum voltage limit; 25 16 6
if Vdc is decreased, turbines 21–25 in branch 5 will violate
the minimum voltage limit. In the CSC-based plant, as can 20 24 25

Vt (kV)
be observed in Fig. 17, turbines 21–25 in branch 5 have high 15 21–23
power and high current because of (16), placing them near the
10
maximum current limit. In branches 2 and 4, although turbines
6 and 16 are at high power output, the overall branch power 5
and current is lower than that of branch 5, placing them near 0
the minimum current limit. Therefore, the allowable range for 0 1 2 3 4 5
Idc is narrow. P (MW)
The optimum turbine outputs P ∗ (11 m/s, 0◦ ) are depicted Figure 16. VSC-based turbine operating points for P ∗ (11 m/s, 60◦ ), Vdc =
in Fig. 18. Each branch is operating identically because the 83.6 kV.
wind is collinear with the series-connected turbines, hence the
branches do not interact aerodynamically. The northernmost branch 1 2 3 4 5
turbines of every branch (1, 6, 11, 16, and 21) are not
shadowed, so they produce more power. Fig. 19 shows the 300 21–23
24 25
distribution of operating points in the power-voltage plane.
Turbines are clustered into two groups: the leading turbines 6
Ib (A)

200 16
in the upper right corner, and the shadowed turbines in the
middle. This particular distribution, where all operating points
100
lie on a single line through the origin, results in a wider range
of allowable Vdc compared to the φ = 60◦ case. In the CSC-
based plant, the branch currents are equal because all branches 0
0 1 2 3 4 5
produce the same power, as seen in Fig. 20. Effectively, the
P (MW)
range of Idc is determined by the leading turbines, which are
Figure 17. CSC-based turbine operating points for P ∗ (11 m/s, 60◦ ), Idc =
closer to the lower limit than the others. Compared to the 1.08 kA.
φ = 60◦ case, the Idc range is now wider.

IV. C ONCLUSION
This paper has introduced a model of a series-dc offshore
wind plant that includes wake effects and detailed electrome-
chanical energy conversion apparatus representations. The
operation of a notional plant was examined for all possible
wind conditions. Generally, the design of a wind plant layout
is primarily aimed at maximizing energy capture. This work
has demonstrated that, in addition to the physical layout of
the turbines, the electrical collection system topology plays
an important role in series-dc plants. The preceding analysis
indicates that turbines operate near terminal voltage/current
limits when the wind speed is close to rated and its direction
is such that wake shadows affect multiple branches. Therefore,
it may be beneficial to orient the plant such that the branches
are aligned with the predominant wind direction. Alternatively,
it could be preferable to orient the plant such that the cross-
branch directions coincide with the lowest expected wind
speeds.
The results also suggest that the transmission voltage or
current may have to be varied as functions of prevailing
wind conditions. For example, Vdc (v∞ , φ) = 0.5[Vdc (v∞ , φ)+
Vdc (v∞ , φ)] was used in Figs. 16 and 19. These func-
tions should be chosen judiciously by considering effects on
converter loss, component reliability, and transmission loss,
among other things. For the notional wind plant considered
here, varying the transmission voltage or current would be

1949-3029 (c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TSTE.2017.2703879, IEEE
Transactions on Sustainable Energy
8

In this study, the wind plant was considered to be static,

branch 1 2 3 4 5
because the main concern was the determination of problem-
5
atic wind conditions, which should be known during initial
plant topology and layout design, and for component sizing. In
4 reality, the stochastic nature of the wind will cause the power
P (MW)

output of the turbines to vary with time. Disturbances such as

gusts may cause one or more turbines to temporarily exceed
3 limits. These effects can be mitigated by proper turbine- and
plant-level control design, which may require dynamic wind
wake models. These considerations were not included in the
2
0 5 10 15 20 25 scope of this paper.
turbine
Figure 18. Turbine power setpoints P ∗ (11 m/s, 0◦ ). A PPENDIX
M ODEL PARAMETERS
branch 1 2 3 4 5
Cp and Ct data for the NREL 5 MW reference turbine rotor
were generated using the open-source software QBlade [24].
25
The radius of the rotor disk was r = 63 m. Air density
20 was ρ = 1.225 kg/m3 . The maximal power coefficient was
Vt (kV)

Cp (λo , βo ) = 0.5028 for λo = 7.92 and βo = 0◦ . The blade

15
pitch angle limits were β = 0◦ and β = 25◦ . Rotor speed
10 limits were ω = 0.524 rad/s and ω = 1.27 rad/s. The wake
5 expansion parameter was set to α = 0.04, as recommended
for offshore wind plants in [16].
0 Parameters for the PMSG were based on those found in [25].
0 1 2 3 4 5
For the VSC case, N = 4.16, L′tr = 7.80 mH, and Vt =
P (MW)
27 kV. For the CSC case, N = 11.74, L′tr = 62.0 mH, and
Figure 19. VSC-based turbine operating points for P ∗ (11 m/s, 0◦ ), Vdc =
76.2 kV. Ib = 337.5 A. The wye-connected filter capacitance was Cf =
11.9 µF.
branch 1 2 3 4 5
Table I
PMSG PARAMETERS
300
P R Lq Ld λm Poles
Ib (A)

200 5 MW 13.6 mΩ 6.37 mH 5.09 mH 9.31 V s 200

100
0 [1] A. Smith, T. Stehly, and W. Musial, “2014–2015 offshore wind tech-
0 1 2 3 4 5
P (MW)
Figure 20. CSC-based turbine operating points for P ∗ (11 m/s, 0◦ ), Idc =
1.30 kA.
necessary for maximum power extraction, because the simplest
choice of maintaining constant Vdc or Idc would lead to
violations of generator-converter limits. Conversely, Vdc or Idc
could be held constant if turbines are allowed to deviate from
the optimal power setpoints P ∗ when required. This approach
may offer other benefits not considered here. In the case of
the leading turbines, reducing power output when experiencing
high voltages or currents will reduce the stress on components,
possibly improving reliability and component life. Moreover,
lower rated devices could be used reducing the cost of the
power electronics. It should also be noted that, given the
topology of the onshore converter, additional constraints on
attainable transmission voltage or current may arise.
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1949-3029 (c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TSTE.2017.2703879, IEEE
Transactions on Sustainable Energy
9

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Michael H. Johnson (S’11) received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering

from Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA in 2012. Currently, he is pursuing
the Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University,
West Lafayette, IN, USA.
His research interests include wind energy conversion and collection, dc
power systems, and electric machine drives.

Dionysios C. Aliprantis (SM’09) received the Diploma degree in electrical

and computer engineering from the National Technical University of Athens,
Greece, in 1999, and the Ph.D. degree from Purdue University, West Lafayette,
IN, USA, in 2003.
He is currently an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer En-
gineering at Purdue University. His research interests are related to elec-
tromechanical energy conversion and the analysis of power systems. More
recently, his work has focused on technologies that enable the integration of
renewable energy sources in the electric power system, and the electrification
of transportation. Prof. Aliprantis was a recipient of the NSF CAREER award
in 2009.
He serves as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Energy
Conversion.

1949-3029 (c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.