Grid-Forming Control Methods for Weakly Connected Offshore WPPs

Abstract: Grid-forming control (GFC) has seen numerous technological advances in their control types, applications, and the multitude of services they provide. Some examples of the services they provide include black start, inertial frequency response, and islanded operation capabilities with the possibility of re-synchronization without the need of additional support from other devices such as storage. State of the art literature proposes a variety of GFCs which can provide single or multiple of these services. However, study of these different GFCs for weakly-connected offshore wind power plants (WPPs) based on time-domain simulation and focusing on the large signal disturbance is not well covered. This paper reviews some of the most researched grid-forming control methods applicable to offshore WPPs and provides a comparative investigation and discussion of their stability properties and applicability, especially when connected to a weak-grid. The paper also provides a discussion on the prerequisites and challenges surrounding the comparative study of different GFCs.