ANALYSIS & SUPPORT: Grid Forming Support for Offshore Wind
The National HVDC Centre is working to provide the lates advice on GFM batteries, STATCOMS, Wind Turbines and HVDC convertors. The project aims to help the client understand the latest development from OEMs, codes and standards, and market in relation to Grid forming and the associated network requirements.
ANALYSIS & SUPPORT: Coordinated Offshore Design for Wind and Network Reinforcement for an international TSO
The National HVDC Centre is working with an internation TSO to provide expert advice on their proposed HVDC offshore network designs. This is focusing on the proposal for a new HVDC multiterminal network to connect offshore wind to the system and transported the power to the load centres across the country.
CLIENT: International Transmission Owner
ANALYSIS & SUPPORT: Core Industry Support
The National HVDC Centre works in partnership with the three onshore transmission owners and the system operator, who are all represented on the Centre’s Technical Advisory Board (TAB). We are funded such that we can work with these core clients on a variety of activities without any additional charges being applied. The HVDC Centre also has an obligation to support knowledge transfer and training to support GB industry in general with the acceleration and de-risking of HVDC technologies used to support the Net Zero transition. This is delivered by the Centre running training courses and knowledge dissemination activities like webinars.
CLIENT: Onshore Transmission Owners and System Owner
ANALYSIS & SUPPORT: Feasibility Study for Multiterminal Rigid Bipole
The National HVDC Centre is working with WindGrid to conduct a detailed feasibility study for a multi-purpose HVDC interconnector between Germany and the UK. WindGrid, a subsidiary of Elia Group, focuses on the development, construction, ownership and operation of electricity transmission infrastructure.
CLIENT: WindGrid
INNOVATION: SETTLE – Managing Inverter-based Oscillations
SETTLE is an innovation project funded under Ofgem’s Network Innovation Allowance (NIA). The project aims to address some of the stability challenges posed by the increasing penetration of renewable energy
FUNDED BY: Network Innovation Allowance (NIA)
ANALYSIS & SUPPORT: NESO Western HVDC Link Performance Analysis
To ensure secure and stable operations with more IBRs in the future, the National Energy System Operator (NESO) has tasked the National HVDC Centre with developing a high-quality EMT model for the Western HVDC link. This model aims to capture its fast switching and flexible operation, vitally contributing to system stability. This initiative involves input from Transmission Owners and is part of NESO’s efforts to establish a robust EMT simulation environment, essential for future grid studies and readiness.
CLIENT: National Energy System Operator (NESO)
INNOVATION: BLADE
BLADE (Black Start Demonstration from Offshore Wind) is an innovation project. The overarching aim of the BLADE project is to bring black start and electricity system restoration from offshore wind to commercial reality by building the necessary cross-industry understanding. The aim is to do so by demonstrating the potential of state-of-the-art offshore wind turbines to provide black start services.
FUNDED BY: OFGEM’s Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF)
ANALYSIS & SUPPORT: SSEN-T System Performance Support
The HVDC Centre is working with SSEN Transmission’s System Performance team to undertake several inter-related activities in support of SSEN-T network development. The main goals of the work are to develop real-time AC system models of the GB network regions of interest to support the numerous upcoming HVDC projects connecting in the north of Scotland and to other parts of GB.
CLIENT: SSEN Transmission
INNOVATION: Network-DC Circuit Breakers
The Network DC project aims to advance the readiness of the technology for implementation on the GB system, to enable the development of offshore DC networks which cannot exist without DC Circuit Breakers (DCCBs).
FUNDED BY: OFGEM’s Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF)
INNOVATION: Project Aquila Interoperability Package
Project Aquila is a world-leading project which will develop a Multi-Terminal, Multi-Vendor DC-hub in Peterhead; establishing the foundations for DC-Grids in GB. As part of the project, the National HVDC Centre is undertaking the workstream of “Aquila Interoperability”, which is a £ 2M project. The project team are working closely with the principle HVDC manufacturers to derive and demonstrate interoperable and vendor agnostic specifications for HVDC converters. They include the development of multi-terminal control, patenting and testing of principles allowing TSOs to specify multi-terminal control functions to deploy an HVDC network surrounding a switching station to interoperate across different vendors and with greater reliability and resilience than before.
CLIENT: SSEN Transmission
INNOVATION: Horizon Europe HVDC-WISE project
The National HVDC Centre is one of 14 partners contributing to the Horizon Europe HVDC-WISE project. The goal of this project is to support further development of HVDC-based transmission grids by developing new reliability and resilience (R&R) oriented planning and analysis tools and identifying HVDC-based grid architectures and technologies that can be readily deployed to improve system performance and facilitate the integration of new renewable sources.
FUNDED BY: UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee [grant number 10041877]
REPLICA HOSTING: Moyle Interconnector
The Moyle Interconnector, owned by Mutual Energy, links the electricity grids of Northern Ireland and Scotland through submarine cables running between converter stations at Ballycronan More in Islandmagee, County Antrim and Auchencrosh in Ayrshire. The National HVDC Centre is hosting the replica control and protection cubicles on behalf of Mutual Energy; enabling us to support the upgrade and ongoing operation of the Moyle Interconnector.
CLIENT: Mutual Energy
REPLICA HOSTING: Caithness–Moray HVDC (CM) Operational Support
The HVDC Centre is continuing to provide technical expertise to the Caithness-Moray Project at each stage of its delivery along with ongoing guidance to the project.
CLIENT: SSEN Transmission
ANALYSIS & SUPPORT: Support for the Shetland Extension of the Caithness-Moray HVDC Link
The National HVDC Centre is playing a pivotal role in the de-risking of what will both be the first multi-terminal VSC-HVDC connection in Europe, and an excellent insight into the design of future multi-terminal offshore connections and Multi-Purpose interconnection going forward.
CLIENT: SSEN Transmission
REPLICA HOSTING: SCADA System Implementation
This project is to include GE PowerOn, as used in the Control Room, into the simulator setup at the National HVDC Centre. Adding this functionality would enhance the training that can be provided for the operators as it would give them the interface to the link that would be use in normal operation of the facility. This means that they would have the the equivalent to a full ‘flight simulator’.
CLIENT: SSEN Transmission
ANALYSIS & SUPPORT: ESO offshore network operation, performance, and technical code impact
The increasing penetration of inverter-based resources and HVDC interconnections have created dynamic interactions, oscillations, and low inertia related stability issues. National Grid ESO’s HND project will introduce more and more DC links leading to a meshed AC-DC grid in near future.
The Electricity System Operator has requested that the National HVDC Centre model the offshore HND networks.
CLIENT: National Energy System Operator (NESO)
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