Reactive power optimization of offshore wind farms considering voltage constraints

Offshore wind farms, when integrated into the power grid via submarine cables, may induce overvoltage in the system owing to the charging power of such cables. Under the premise of satisfying constraints, the active power output of wind farms ranges from 0 to full capacity; by incorporating the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm, the variation curves of compensation device capacity and wind turbine reactive power with respect to wind turbine active power are derived; then, according to the comparison results between the improvement benefit and the preset threshold, the optimal value of the maximum active output of the wind farms and the maximum value of the compensation device are found; finally, the reactive power of wind turbines and the capacity of compensation devices are selected as optimization variables to minimize the internal network loss within wind farms. This article proposes a reasonable allocation of reactive power output in wind farms, which can mitigate the internal network loss of wind farms while reducing the capacity of reactive power compensation devices required by the system, thereby effectively lowering the operational losses and equipment costs associated with grid-connected offshore wind farms.