This study is dealing with the development of a model for evaluating the reliability of
submarine cables in offshore wind farms and assessing its worth. In order to achieve
that, the approach of Monte Carlo simulation has been chosen.
After presenting the basic aspects of offshore wind farms and giving a theoretical
background in electrical systems reliability and Monte Carlo methods, certain
algorithms for addressing the problem are being discussed. Those algorithms are
configuration – dependent. Therefore, the basic collector configurations used in
offshore wind farms are presented as well.
The model is created using Visual Basic, and certain experiments are conducted.
These experiments are performed for three basic collector configurations (string
collector, cluster collector and redundant string collector), varying certain key
parameters such as the cable failure rate, the inaccessibility period due to bad weather
conditions, the mean wind speed of the site and the rating of the turbines used in the
collector.
The outcome of these experiments leads to the calculation of the energy loss for each
arrangement in each case. Adding the capital cabling cost for each configurations,
helps us conclude on which configuration is the preferred one as the key parameters
of the experiments vary.