ELEC6226 Assignment 2 201920 PDF
ELEC6226 Assignment 2 201920 PDF
ELEC6226 Assignment 2 201920 PDF
Due Date (report and slides): May 8th 2020, 16:00 (electronic submission, one per group)
Due Date (presentation): Presentations will be scheduled in the week commencing May 11th, but
please note that the slides are due to be submitted with the report on May 8th.
Background
During the first part of the module, you have studied the operation of a range of thyristor-based
switching devices, considering in detail how they operate. Subsequently you have conducted a
critical review of ac to dc converters, examining the different convertor topologies that are available
for VSC systems, along with those under active research. In the second half of the module, you will
be exploring the different options available for connecting the two convertor stations, by both
overhead transmission lines and by underground or subsea cables. This assignment draws together
these areas of work to culminate in you working as a team to produce the specification for a DC
transmission link to suit a particular scenario.
Teams
A spreadsheet will be posted on the course website in week 23 detailing the team allocations. The
group size will be either 5 or 6 students. The team selections have been deliberately chosen to
provide groups with a mix of optional modules and degree streams, to ensure that you have the
widest range of experience available within the group. Note that the course is attended by students
from a number of degree streams with a range of different experience; some may have much more
background in electronics, while others may be more comfortable with the high power aspects.
During your career you will work with people from a wide range of backgrounds, many of whom you
may not know before you join a project team.
Task
Your task is to produce an outline technical specification for the particular connection scenario
which your team has been given. Areas which you should consider include:
Note that the above list is not exhaustive and you may find other areas you wish to include. Any
consideration of financial cost will likely need to be qualitative due to the difficulty of obtaining data,
however you may wish to quantify the cost of system losses in more detail.
You will be expected to refer to a range of published material in supporting your proposal, including
articles presented at International Conferences and peer reviewed Journal articles, alongside
industry technical documents and international standards. You may also wish to investigate other
operational links which are similar to those which you are designing – however, please be aware that
you do need to fully justify your designs and that you must make it clear where any sources were
used. There are a range of useful published articles in the technical literature which provide
overviews of such projects. A selection of cases and other supporting documentation will also be
posted to the module website.
Deliverables
Each group will be expected to produce two deliverables:
1) An Executive Summary report of not more than 15 pages in length (standard margins, 12pt
font, 1.5 line spacing), inclusive of references. This should clearly present an outline
technical specification of your chosen design option, along with a full justification of any
design decisions that you have taken. All of the technical areas noted in the Task section
should be described in the report and all group members should contribute to it equally.
You should also include a one page summary after the references to describe which group
members have produced which sections of the document. Note that this is not a
comprehensive design report – “Executive Summary” implies that you need to explain the
key features needed for someone to make decisions. For example: you do not need to
include full calculations for everything you do, but you should clearly note the methods used
to arrive at the results. You may wish to upload the spreadsheet calculations or other
supporting documentation as a zip file, but the report must provide sufficient explanation to
understand what you have done. Your report should conclude with a review of the key
issues that you feel would need to be addressed in the detailed engineering phase of the
project.
2) A presentation for a Group Interview. The presentation should be no more than 15 minutes
long and should highlight the key design decisions presented in the report. After completion
of the presentation, you will be interviewed by a panel who will ask you questions (~10mins)
about your design to explore why you have decided to make the recommendations given in
your Executive Summary report. All group members should attend and participate in the
presentation and the questions. There is no requirement for groups to attend each other’s
presentations.
The Executive Summary report should be submitted electronically (one copy per group) as per the
deadline given above and on ECS Handin.
A full timetable for this part of the module, including the dates for the presentations, can be found
on the module resources page.
Marking Scheme
This assessment is worth 50% of the total module mark. An indication of the breakdown of marks
for this assessment is shown below.
All members of a group are expected to contribute to the best of their ability. In the event that
individuals within the group do not contribute adequately to the group elements of the project,
this marking scheme may be set aside. Any concerns should be raised with the module leader.