Technological trends in electric topologies for offshore wind power plants

The current situation of the offshore wind market is characterized, among other things, by two opposing forces. On the one hand, there are a few already tested solutions that can be considered almost industrialized under certain conditions of sea bed depth and distance from shore, and investors interested in the offshore wind business will generally demand to keep risks at a minimum. On the other hand, as in any other emerging industry, optimized solutions are far from being available and OWPPs that will be built during the next decade will probably have to introduce new concepts to cope with the new challenges. Industry and academia are proposing alternative topologies for the electric systems of those future power plants, and different solutions are trying to demonstrate their techno-economical leadership in this budding market. The aim of the paper is to analyse the most promising proposals published by researchers and manufacturers during the last few years.