Engineering Commons^™

Offshore Electrical Networks And Grid Integration Of Wave Energy Converter Arrays - Techno-Economic Optimisation Of Array Electrical Networks, Power Quality Assessment, And Irish Market Perspectives, Fergus Sharkey

Doctoral

Wave energy is an emerging industry and faces many challenges before commercial wave energy converter (WEC) arrays are installed. One of these challenges is the grid integration of WEC arrays. This includes offshore electrical networks, grid compliance, and access to electrical markets. This must be achieved in a technically viable manner and also at an acceptable cost. As electrical networks are expected to make up a large proportion of the overall WEC array CAPEX, perhaps up to 25%, this area is critical to the long term competitiveness of wave energy.

The objectives of this thesis are to develop technically and …

Heating Effects Through Harmonic Distortion On Electric Cables In The Built Environment, Kevin O'Connell

Doctoral

Under ideal circumstances, electric power supply voltage and current waveforms should be sinusoidal. However, this is very seldom the case in the built environment, due to the proliferation of non-linear loads. Examples of non-linear loads are those containing switched mode power supplies, reactors and electronic rectifiers/inverters. Common devices such as personal computers, fluorescent lighting, electric motors, variable speed drives, transformers and reactors and virtually all other electronic equipment are examples of non-linear loads. Non-linear loads are the norm in the built environment rather than the exception. Such loads produce complex current and voltage waves and simple spectral analysis of these …