Reliability is critical to the design, operation, maintenance, and performance assessment and improvement of wind turbines (WTs). This paper systematically reviews publicly available reliability data for both onshore and offshore WTs and investigates the impacts of reliability on the cost of energy. WT failure rates and downtimes, broken down by subassembly, are collated from 18 publicly available databases including over 18 000 WTs, corresponding to over 90 000 turbine‐years. The data are classified based on the types of data collected (failure rate and stop rate) and by onshore and offshore populations. A comprehensive analysis is performed to investigate WT subassembly reliability data variations, identify critical subassemblies, compare onshore and offshore WT reliability, and understand possible sources of uncertainty. Large variations in both failure rates and downtimes are observed, and the skew in failure rate distribution implies that large databases with low failure rates, despite their diverse populations, are less uncertain than more targeted surveys, which are easily skewed by WT type failures. A model is presented to evaluate the levelised cost of energy as a function of WT failure rates and downtimes. A numerical study proves a strong and nonlinear relationship between WT reliability and operation and maintenance expenditure as well as annual energy production. Together with the cost analysis model, the findings can help WT operators identify the optimal degree of reliability improvement to minimise the levelised cost of energy.

The paper presents a new model of the VSC-HVDC aimed at power flow solutions using the Newton-Raphson method. Each converter station is made up of the series connection of a voltage source converter (VSC) and its connecting transformer which is assumed to be a tap-changing (LTC) transformer. The new model represents a paradigm shift in the way the fundamental frequency, positive sequence modeling of VSC-HVDC links are represented, where the VSCs are not treated as idealized, controllable voltage sources but rather as compound transformer devices to which certain control properties of PWM-based inverters may be linked - just as DC-to-DC converters have been linked, conceptually speaking, to step-up and step-down transformers. The VSC model, and by extension that of the VSC-HVDC, takes into account, in aggregated form, the phase-shifting and scaling nature of the PWM control. It also takes into account the VSC inductive and capacitive reactive power design limits, switching losses and ohmic losses.

The paper presents a new model of the STATCOM aimed at power flow solutions using the Newton-Raphson method. The STATCOM is made up of the series connection of a voltage-source converter (VSC) and its connecting transformer. The VSC is represented in this paper by a complex tap-changing transformer whose primary and secondary windings correspond, notionally speaking, to the VSC's ac and dc buses, respectively. The magnitude and phase angle of the complex tap changer are said to be the amplitude modulation index and the phase shift that would exist in a PWM inverter to enable either reactive power generation or absorption purely by electronic processing of the voltage and current waveforms within the VSC. The new STATCOM model allows for a comprehensive representation of its ac and dc circuits-this is in contrast to current practice where the STATCOM is represented by an equivalent variable voltage source, which is not amenable to a proper representation of the STATCOM's dc circuit. One key characteristic of the new VSC model is that no special provisions within a conventional ac power flow solution algorithm is required to represent the dc circuit, since the complex tap-changing transformer of the VSC gives rise to the customary ac circuit and a notional dc circuit. The latter includes the dc capacitor, which in steady-state draws no current, and a current-dependent conductance to represent switching losses. The ensuing STATCOM model possesses unparalleled control capabilities in the operational parameters of both the ac and dc sides of the converter. The prowess of the new STATCOM power flow model is demonstrated by numerical examples where the quadratic convergence characteristics of the Newton-Raphson method are preserved.

This paper presents the optimal power flow (OPF) formulation of a recent power flow STATCOM model . The new model puts forward an alternative, insightful interpretation of the fundamental frequency operation of the PWM-controlled voltage source converter (VSC), in an optimal fashion. The new model makes provisions for the explicit representation of the converter's internal ohmic and switching losses which in the context of an OPF formulation, yields an optimum operating point at which these power losses are at a minimum. The STATCOM model possesses unparalleled control capabilities in the operational parameters of both the AC and DC sides of the converter. Such control modeling flexibility is at its best when expressed in the context of an OPF solution using Newton's method. The STATCOM equations are incorporated into the OPF formulation using Lagrangian functions in quite a natural manner for efficient optimal solutions using a single frame-of-reference. The inequality constraint set of variables is handled equally well using the multipliers method. The prowess of the new model is demonstrated using two sample systems.