Export System Design Methodology

For details of the code implementation, please see Export System Design API.

Overview

Below is an overview of the process used to design an export cable system in ORBIT. For more detail on the helper classes used to support this design please see Cabling Helper Classes, specifically Cable and CableSystem.

Number of Required Cables

The number of export cables required is calculated by dividing the windfarm’s capacity by the configured export cable’s power rating and adding any user defined redundnacy as seen below.

\(num\_cables = \lceil\frac{plant\_capacity}{cable\_power}\rceil + num\_redundant\)

Export Cable length

The total length of the export cables is calculated as the sum of the site depth, distance to landfall and distance to interconnection multiplied by the user defined :py:attr`percent_added_length` to account for any exclusions or geotechnical design considerations that make a straight line cable route impractical.

\(length = (d + distance_\text{landfall} + distance_\text{interconnection} * (1 + length_\text{percent_added})\)

Design Result

The result of this design module (design_result) is a list of cable sections and their lengths and masses that represent the export cable system. This result can then be passed to the export cable installation module to simulate the installation of the system.

Process Diagrams