Energies, Vol. 11, Pages 1523: A Thermal Rating Calculation Approach for Wind Power Grid-Integrated Overhead Lines (Energies)

Currently, the rapid increase in wind power integration in power systems is resulting in an increasing power flow in the grid-integrated power transmission lines of wind farms. The wind power curtailment caused by the current limits (thermal ratings) of the wind power integration overhead lines (WPIOLs) is becoming increasingly common. Aiming at this issue, the influence of conductor heating on the loss of tensile strength (LOTS) and sag of a WPIOL was analyzed in this paper. Then a decision model is proposed for the thermal ratings of WPIOLs, which regards the minimized wind power curtailment as objective and introduces permissible cumulative LOTS and sag of the conductor as constraints. Based on this model, the thermal rating for a WPIOL can be decided to ensure the expected service life of the conductor and safe clearance. In addition, case studies are used to demonstrate that the proposed approach is capable of improving the conservatism of conventional thermal rating calculation and reducing the wind power curtailment by improving the utilization efficiency of WPIOLs.