A Study of the Potential for a Submarine Interconnection in the Gulf of St. Lawrence

This paper proposes a mathematical model for planning the grid topology of multi-terminal submarine HVDC networks for bulk renewable energy transmission and power system interconnections. The proposed model is a mixed integer nonlinear optimization problem. The decision variables are points of connection, presence and number of links between connections points, and the nominal voltage level of the grid. Respecting the power balance and power flows are the main physical constraints on the problem. Case studies were conducted for the case of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Eastern Canada. Results demonstrated that larger interconnections are a more profitable way of connecting isolated networks to larger ac grids.