IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 22, NO.

1, MARCH 2007 37
HVDC Connection of Offshore Wind Farms to the
Transmission System
Paola Bresesti, Member, IEEE, Wil L. Kling, Member, IEEE, Ralph L. Hendriks, Member, IEEE, and Riccardo Vailati
(Invited Paper)
AbstractThis paper presents a technical and economic analysis
to evaluate the benets and drawbacks of grid connecting offshore
wind farms through a dc link. A rst case, concerning a 100-MW
wind farm, is thoroughly investigated and cases of larger wind
farms (200 and 500 MW) are presented. Three different trans-
mission solutions are compared: 150-kV ac, 400-kV ac, and high-
voltage dc based on voltage sourced converters (VSC-HVDC). Af-
ter a brief overviewof the features of these connection solutions, the
related operational aspects are evaluated. An economic assessment
compares the dc connection option to the ac alternatives, taking
into account the investment, operation, and maintenance costs,
and the negative valorization of losses and energy not supplied.
Economic assessment includes sensitivity analyses of parameters,
which could impact the 100-MW wind farm: distance, component
costs, dc converter reliability, and dc converter losses.
Index TermsDC power transmission, interconnected power
systems, power cables, power transmission economics, wind power
generation.
I. INTRODUCTION
T
HE application of wind energy and especially offshore
wind energy is a keystone in the policy of several European
countries for large-scale use of renewable energy. The realiza-
tion and the grid connection of offshore wind farms are receiv-
ing much attention, especially in Denmark, United Kingdom,
Germany, Sweden, and The Netherlands.
Different solutions for wind farm connection to the onshore
grid have been adopted for the rst projects in Northern Europe.
Denmarks Horns Rev wind farm, the main European offshore
pilot project, constructed in 2002, has a capacity of 160 MW,
and was the rst plant using an offshore transformer substation,
which connected to the shore through a 15-km-long three-core
ac cable with a rated voltage of 150 kV. Denmarks 165.6-MW
Nysted wind farm, constructed in 2004 also with an offshore
transformer station, connected to the shore through an approx-
imately 10-km 132-kV ac submarine cable. The United King-
doms 90-MWBarrowwind farm, which was completed in May
Manuscript received July 12, 2006; accepted October 25, 2006. This work
was supported by the European Community under the Energy, Environment and
Sustainable Development Thematic Programme of the Fifth Framework Pro-
gramme for research, technological development and demonstration activities,
under Contract ENK6-CT-2002-00670. Paper no. TEC-00267-2006.
P. Bresesti and R. Vailati are with CESI RICERCA, 20134 Milan, Italy
(e-mail: paola.bresesti@cesiricerca.it; riccardo.vailati@cesiricerca.it).
W. L. Kling is with the Delft University of Technology, 2628CD Delft, The
Netherlands, and also with TenneT TSObv, 6812AR, Arnhem, The Netherlands
(e-mail: w.kling@tennet.org).
R. L. Hendriks is with the Delft University of Technology, 2628CD Delft,
The Netherlands (e-mail: R.L.Hendriks@ewi.tudelft.nl).
Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TEC.2006.889624
2006 and is close to commissioning, also adopts an offshore
33/132-kV substation, which connects 7 km to the shore with a
132-kV ac cable.
In contrast, the U.K. offshore wind farms, Kentish Flats
(90 MW, since December 2005, 8.5-km offshore), and Scroby
Sands (60 MW, since 2004, 2.5-km offshore) do not use an
offshore substation. Their wind turbine generators (WTG) are
connected to the power grid via three three-core mediumvoltage
feeder cables. This grid topology was also adopted in the
Netherlands Egmond aan Zee Offshore Wind Farm (108 MW,
since 2006). The U.K.s rst offshore wind farm, North Hoyle
(60 MW, since 2003, 12-km offshore) is connected to the shore
via 33-kV cables.
The future holds larger wind farms with power ratings of sev-
eral hundred megawatts. These projects will be further from the
shore because of better wind proles and large space demands,
so the requirements for transmission capacity and distance will
increase [1].
To evaluate connection options for existing and future off-
shore wind farms, this paper compares two solutions: 1) conven-
tional high-voltage ac (HVAC) technology and 2) high-voltage
dc, based on voltage sourced converters (VSC-HVDC), for
three offshore wind farms rated at 100-, 200-, and 500-MW
power.
The paper is organized as follows: Section II introduces possi-
ble transmission options for the connection, generally describing
the advantages and drawbacks of HVAC and HVDC transmis-
sion. Section III describes the characteristics of the case studies
and results of the technical analysis (evaluation of yearly energy
losses and sizing of the compensation devices for ac solution).
Section IVsummarizes the economic analysis for all, comparing
dc options versus ac alternatives. Section V looks more deeply
at the 100-MW wind farm case study, with a sensitivity anal-
ysis applied to some input parameters. Section VI draws some
conclusions for possible application of HVDC transmission for
offshore wind farm connections.
II. OFFSHORE WIND FARM CONNECTION SYSTEM
The electrical connection system for an offshore wind farm
can be divided into the offshore collection system and the trans-
mission link to the shore.
A. Offshore Collection System
The offshore collection system gathers the wind turbines
power production and brings it to a central collection point,
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38 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 22, NO. 1, MARCH 2007
which then ties to the main grid. The collection systemis usually
a string or star cluster conguration. For string clusters, a num-
ber of WTGs inject power into a feeder, whose voltage level
must be high enough to carry the total generated power in the
string (several tens of kilovolts). A step-up transformer at each
WTG is needed to adapt generator and feeder voltages. In star
clusters, each turbine is directly connected to a nodal point, i.e., a
platformwhere a transformer is installed. Here, the voltage level
is increased and the power is further transported to the central
point. Although the star cluster requires no individual step-up
transformers, it does require multiple collection platforms for
transformers and switchgear.
Currently, only string clusters are used in offshore wind farm
projects and, therefore, this paper assumes only this cluster type.
At the moment, the most cost-effective collection voltage seems
to be approximately 30 kV[2] (the Danish Horns Rev wind farm
operates at a collection voltage of 36 kV).
B. Transmission Link to the Shore
From the offshore collection point, the transmission link
to the shore can be HVAC, HVDC with thyristor-based line-
commutated converters (LCC), or VSC-HVDC. HVAC connec-
tion is the solution adopted by all existing wind farms and has
the following features.
r
The submarine ac cable generates a considerable reactive
current due to its high capacitance, typically in the range
of 100150 kvar/km for 33-kV cross-linked polyethylene
(XLPE) cables, 1000 kvar/kmfor 132-kVXLPEcables [3],
and 68 Mvar/km for 400-kV XLPE cables. This reduces
the active current-carrying capacity of the cable and, for
large distances, requires compensation devices.
r
Because of the high capacitance of the cable, resonances
may occur between the onshore and offshore grids that
leads to a distortion in the shape of the voltage.
r
The ac local wind turbine grid and the main grid are syn-
chronously coupled, and all faults in either grid are propa-
gated in the other.
r
Compared to dc solutions, the major advantage is low-cost
substations, since no power electronic devices are required.
On the other hand, cable costs are higher than that for dc
alternatives.
The main advantages of the dc link with respect to the ac link
are the following.
r
Losses and voltage drop in the dc link are very low and
there is no charging current in the cable at dc. There is
virtually no limit on connection distance beyond practical
constraints of cable manufacture and cable laying.
r
There is no resonance between the cables and other ac
equipment.
r
Since the collection system and the main grid are not syn-
chronously coupled, the WTGs do not contribute signi-
cantly to short-circuit currents in the main grid.
r
The dc link provides fast control of active and reactive
power, whereas the ac link provides no or slow control.
VSCs are able to control reactive power over the complete
operation range, whereas LCCs consume reactive power of
50%60%of the active power [4], [5]. This control capabil-
ity makes it easier to comply with connection requirements.
LCC HVDC technology has proven itself on land and could
be cheaper than VSC-HVDC for power ratings of hundreds of
megawatts [6], but it seems not particularly well suited for off-
shore applications. Converter stations and auxiliary equipment
have demanding space requirements [2], equaling enormous off-
shore converter platforms. Moreover, this technology is highly
susceptible to ac network disturbances (resulting in converter
commutation failures), which can temporarily shut down the
complete HVDC system. For these reasons, this technology is
not considered further in this paper.
VSC transmission uses pulse-width modulation with a
switching frequency of several kilohertz to synthesize a sinu-
soidal voltage on the ac side. Therefore, harmonic distortion
of the ac-side voltage is lower, and fewer auxiliary lters are
required than LCC HVDC requires. This smaller footprint in-
stallation technology is suitable for installation at, e.g., an off-
shore platform. VSCs are able to independently control both
active and reactive power exchanged with the ac grid; there-
fore, they can help voltage regulation, and are able to operate in
weak or even dead ac networks. Power reversal can be accom-
plished by keeping the same voltage polarity, which enables the
use of XLPE cables without the problems imposed by trapped
space and surface charges. The major drawback of the VSC
technology is the high-converter loss that is caused mainly by
switching losses that depend on the switching frequency of the
semiconductor devices.
III. TECHNICAL ANALYSIS OF THE CONNECTION OPTIONS
The technical analysis assesses the yearly system losses and
determines the rating of the compensation devices required for
the ac cable connection to the shore.
To evaluate losses, the wind farms yearly energy produc-
tion is considered, starting from the wind-speed distribution
function. A Rayleigh distribution function is assumed and the
resulting yearly production curve is simplied to 18 operational
points. The resulting equivalent yearly full-load time is approx-
imately 3820 h (average capacity factor of 43.6%).
Losses in cables, transformers, reactors, and converters are
considered for different connection solutions. All ac and dc ca-
bles are assumed to have XLPE insulation, and their parameters,
used for loss calculations, are taken from [7] and [8]. For trans-
formers, the losses in the windings and the core are considered;
the latter are supposed to be constant. For shunt compensation
reactors, the losses are assumed to be independent of the actual
reactive power production, and they are evaluated assuming a
quality factor of 200.
Converter losses are assessed, assuming three-level neutral
point clamped (NPC) converters, whose efciency is higher
than 98% at full-load operating condition [9]. The switching
and conduction losses in the converter valves are modeled as
reported in [10] and depicted in Fig. 1. The losses in the con-
nection transformers are evaluated as for the other transformers.
The technical-economic analysis is carried out for three wind
farms: small (100 MW), medium (100 + 100 MW), and large
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BRESESTI et al.: HVDC CONNECTION OF OFFSHORE WIND FARMS TO THE TRANSMISSION SYSTEM 39
Fig. 1. Modeling of losses in the converters.
Fig. 2. Electrical system for ac connection of the 100-MW wind farm.
(250 + 250 MW). In the base case, the wind farm is assumed
to be 60 km from the shore while the transmission distance
changes in the sensitivity analyses presented in Section V.
A. 100-MW Wind Farm
For the 100-MW case, ac connection through a 150-kV cable
(Fig. 2) and dc connection through VSC-HVDC (Fig. 3) are
considered. The reactive power produced by the 150-kV ac
cable is absorbed onshore in a xed reactor rated 52 Mvar, the
average between the reactive power production of the cable at
no load and at full-load.
For the VSC-based HVDC connection, the converter stations
(transformers) are rated at 120 MVA to allow reactive power
transfers if needed, while the dc cable capacity is 140 MW in
order to adopt a cable already available in the manufacturers
datasheet. The voltage level of the ac section of the converter
does not have a considerable inuence on the power losses and
is, therefore, not optimized. Table I summarizes the properties
of the ac and dc power cables.
B. 200-MW Wind Farm
For the 200-MW case, a connection through an ac cable
system and VSC-HVDC are considered. The ac conguration
Fig. 3. Electrical system for dc connection of the 100-MW wind farm.
Fig. 4. Electrical system for ac connection of the 200-MW wind farm.
(Fig. 4) is obtained by mirroring the arrangement used for the
100-MW case and using a three-winding transformer.
The compensation reactor for the ac connection is rated at
70 Mvar. In dc and ac alternatives, the transformers are rated
240 MVA to allow operation at a power factor lower than one.
C. 500-MW Wind Farm
For the 500-MW case, three congurations are considered:
ac connection with two 150-kV links, ac connection with one
400-kV link, and dc connection with two VSC-HVDC links.
In the 150-kV ac conguration (Fig. 5), each connection to
the shore is rated at the maximum power produced by half
the wind farm (250 MW); nevertheless, the cable system C
between the two halves is installed to improve reliability. This
is cost-effective only if the connection expenses are lower than
the net present gain from increased energy production, which is
evaluated by considering the yearly production curve of the wind
farm (reported in Fig. 6 with and without the cable system C)
and the unavailability of the cable connection to the shore. This
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40 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 22, NO. 1, MARCH 2007
TABLE I
CHARACTERISTICS OF AC AND DC CABLES
Fig. 5. Electrical system for the ac connection of the 500-MWwind farmwith
two 150-kV submarine cable systems (scheme with additional cable C).
Fig. 6. Yearly prole of power transmitted to the shore and the gain obtained
by means of the additional cable.
option is cost-effective, if one of the two cables to the shore is
out of service for a fraction of time larger than 1.13%. A single
82-Mvar onshore reactor is connected to each of the two 150-kV
ac links.
The 400-kV connections compensation for reactive power
comes from two xed reactors, one on the offshore substation
and the other onshore. The offshore reactor is rated to absorb
TABLE II
YEARLY ENERGY LOSSES FOR THE THREE CASE STUDIES
240 Mvar, equal to half the total reactive power generated by the
cable at no load. The onshore reactor is rated 222 Mvar, which
is equal to the average of the maximum and minimum reactive
power supplied shoreward by the cable when the offshore reactor
is in service.
The dc connection of the 500-MW wind farm consists of two
VSC-HVDC links, each rated 250 MW and connected to the
150-kV ac grid. Also in this case, a 150-kV ac cable connecting
the two halves of the wind farm is considered. The solution of a
single VSC link, rated 500 MW, is not considered in the study
as it is currently not state-of-the-art VSC-HVDC technology.
D. Calculation of Yearly Losses
The yearly total energy losses in the electrical systembetween
the WTGs and the main grid connection point are evaluated by
means of an iterative power ow procedure. They are reported
in Table II (as absolute gures and as a percentage of total wind
energy production). Yearly variable energy losses are computed
at each of the 18 operational points of the production duration
curve, while yearly constant energy losses are assumed to have
an operational time of 8400 h. For all the case studies, the losses
of the HVDC-VSC alternative are higher than the losses of the
ac solution: this is mainly due to high losses in the converters.
IV. ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: COMPARISON OF THE
CONNECTION OPTIONS
To compare different proposed congurations, the costs of
investment, operation and maintenance (O&M), and the value
of losses and of energy not supplied (ENS) are considered.
The investment costs include 33-kV ac offshore grid cables
and their installation, HV cables connecting the wind farm to
the shore and their installation (ac or dc), transformers, convert-
ers, ac switch gear, reactors, and the support structure of the
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BRESESTI et al.: HVDC CONNECTION OF OFFSHORE WIND FARMS TO THE TRANSMISSION SYSTEM 41
offshore platform. These costs are estimated by the equations
taken from [10].
The cable installation costs depend on several parameters (in-
cluding laying technology, presence of existing infrastructures,
and requirements of mechanical protection); therefore, the ap-
proximation of 50 000/kmfor each offshore cable, independent
of the voltage level, is applied in base case.
The economic evaluation of O&M costs is limited to the
HV section of the transmission system (submarine cables and
substations). Cable maintenance costs are estimated equally for
both ac and dc transmission at 200 000/year for all cable sys-
tems. The yearly maintenance costs of the substations are as-
sessed at 0.4% of the total investments for the transmission
link.
According to a Dutch governmental scheme that grants a xed
ten-year subsidy per produced kilowatt hour of wind energy to a
maximum of 18 000 full-load hours [11], the economic value of
losses and ENS is 97/MWh for the rst ve years of operation
and 40/MWh for the following years.
The ENS costs are estimated through a reliability analysis
of the transmission system. The 33-kV ac collection system is
always considered available (not relevant in the comparison)
and, therefore, only the link to the shore is considered. The
following reliability data are adopted for the equipment that
constitutes this link.
r
Equal availability gures are considered for both ac and
dc high-voltage cables. It is assumed that during the con-
nections lifetime (supposed 20 years) each cable system
can experience one failure. A 30-day mean time to repair
is assumed.
r
The failure rate of the distribution transformer, indepen-
dent of its voltage (150 kV or 400 kV) and power rat-
ing, is 3.44 10
2
/year and the mean time to repair is
21 days [12].
r
For the VSC-based HVDC, it is not yet possible to de-
ne the reliability gures based on operating experience
because no recorded gures are publicly available. There-
fore, in this paper, an overall availability of 99% for each
conversion station is assumed (including power electronic
converters, transformers, reactors, lters, controls, and the
auxiliaries).
The resulting unavailability of the transmission between the
collection point and the main ac grid is, for all case studies,
reported in Table III together with the resulting ENS.
Table IV reports the results of the economic analysis. The as-
sumptions for the nancial parameters are a 7%nominal interest
rate, 2% ination, and 20 years economic lifetime.
For all cases, the major share in total costs is given by in-
vestments. For ac solution, the largest investments are the high-
voltage cables; for dc solution, they are the converter stations.
The dc solutions main benet is the lower cost for manufac-
turing and installing the cable; nevertheless, the savings are not
high enough to counterbalance the converter costs.
The power losses for the VSC-HVDC connection are con-
siderably higher than that for the ac connection. This espe-
cially impacts the economics of the 100-MW wind farm. The
ENS costs differ remarkably between the two technologies be-
TABLE III
UNAVAILABILITY OF THE TRANSMISSION LINK TO THE SHORE AND
CORRESPONDING YEARLY ENERGY NOT SUPPLIED
cause a 1% unavailability is assumed for each converter sta-
tion. Anyways, these costs do not have a large inuence on
the nal economic assessment. On the whole, for all case stud-
ies, the VSC-HVDC solution is more expensive than the ac
solution.
In the 100-MW case, for which the costs of the two trans-
mission technologies have a slight difference, the inuence of
the type of turbine on economic results is examined as well.
The costs of the WTGs refer to [13]. A price of 889.3/kW
is adopted for constant-speed turbines and a price of 950/kW
for variable-speed turbines. The economic advantage resulting
from the use of the constant-speed WTGs in the dc solution is
not enough to balance the higher costs of the dc transmission
system. As a matter of fact, the ac solution whose total costs of
generation and transmission are 172.32 million euros, is slightly
cheaper than the VSC-HVDCsolution whose total costs amount
to 181.28 million euros.
V. ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: SENSITIVITIES
The economic results of the 100-MW offshore wind farm
study show that the actualized costs of the HVDC solution are
20% higher than the costs of the ac solution. To evaluate the
factors, which most signicantly affect the result of this eco-
nomic assessment and could favor the choice of dc solutions, a
set of sensitivity analyses is performed concerning the following
parameters:
r
transmission distance: base case 60 km, variable from 20
to 120 km;
r
cost of cable installation and protection: base case
50 000/km, variable from 50 000 to 200 000/km;
r
cost of converter stations: base case 110 000/MW, vari-
able from 90 000 to 130 000/MW;
r
losses level in the converter stations: base case 1.8% for
each converter at full-load, variable from 1.2% to 2.4%;
r
availability of converter stations: base case 0.99 for each
converter, variable from 0.985 to 0.995.
The results of the sensitivity analyses for the 100-MW wind
farm are presented in the following tables (Tables VIX). In
particular, Fig. 7 shows that when varying the length of the con-
nection, a break-even point of costs for ac and dc transmission
appears (at a distance of about 90 km from offshore wind farm
to onshore substation).
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42 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 22, NO. 1, MARCH 2007
TABLE IV
ECONOMIC RESULTS FOR ALL CASES
TABLE V
ECONOMIC RESULTS OF SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS: TRANSMISSION DISTANCE
TABLE VI
SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS: COST OF CABLE LAYING AND PROTECTION
TABLE VII
ECONOMIC RESULTS OF SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS: COST OF STATIONS
TABLE VIII
ECONOMIC RESULTS OF SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS: LOSSES IN THE STATIONS
The reduction of the parameters characterizing the converter
stations (cost, level of losses, and unavailability), which is ex-
pected to be given by future technology development, could
have a lower but important impact on the economics of the con-
nection (as shown in Tables VIIIX). Furthermore, a signicant
TABLE IX
ECONOMIC RESULTS OF SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS: AVAILABILITY OF STATIONS
Fig. 7. Economic results of the sensitivity analysis transmission distance,
showing the break-even point of ac versus dc transmission.
increase of cable installation and protection costs can be an ad-
ditional reason, which leads to a convergence of total costs for
the dc solution and the ac alternative (Table VI).
Finally, the comparison becomes more favorable for dc so-
lutions when considering the inuence of different types of
wind turbines. HVDCallows the use of constant-speed turbines,
which are less expensive than variable-speed turbines because
they lack power electronics.
VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a detailed technical-economic analysis eval-
uates different transmission solutions (150-kV ac, 400-kV ac,
and VSC-HVDC) for onshore grid connection of three different-
sized offshore wind farms (100 MW, 200 MW, and 500 MW).
For all the case studies, the HVDC solution is more expen-
sive than the ac, partly because of higher total investment costs
at the considered connection distance of 60 km. Furthermore,
costs related to power losses for the VSC-HVDCconnection are
considerably higher than for the ac alternatives.
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BRESESTI et al.: HVDC CONNECTION OF OFFSHORE WIND FARMS TO THE TRANSMISSION SYSTEM 43
Nevertheless, the results of sensitivity analyses performed for
various parameters (connection distance, cost of cable protec-
tion, and cost and reliability of converter stations) show that
HVDC appears to be the cheapest option to connect a 100-MW
wind farm at distances greater than 90 km to the shore.
Evaluations performed within this research activity and the
present experience with VSC-HVDC connection of offshore
oil/gas platforms allows us to believe that HVDC is a promis-
ing technology with growth potential for applications in the
connection of offshore wind farms.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of
R. Calisti and I. Valad e to this research activity. The authors
would also like to thank the HVDC consortium for granting
permission for publication.
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Paola Bresesti (M03) received the M.Sc. degree in
electrical engineering from the Universit` a degli Studi
di Pavia, Strada Nuova, Pavia, Italy, in 1991.
She joined CESI in 1991, where she has been the
Head of the Network Study Unit in the T&DNetwork
Department from2003 to 2005. In 2006, she moved to
CESI RICERCA, Milan, Italy, where she is currently
the Technical Director of the Network and Infrastruc-
tures Department. Her main research interests include
power system planning and operation, power system
modeling, and power system economics.
Ms. Bresesti serves IEEE Power Engineering Society as Chair of the Trans-
mission Working Group in the Power System Planning and Implementation
Committee and as member of the Editorial Board of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS
OF POWER SYSTEMS. She is also the Secretary of the Study Committee C4 Sys-
temTechnical Performance of International Council on Large Electric Systems
(CIGRE) and the Italian member of International Energy Agency Implement-
ing Agreement on Electricity Networks Analysis, Research & Development
(ENARD)
Wil L. Kling (M95) received the M.Sc. degree in
electrical engineering from the Technical University
of Eindhoven, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, in 1978.
Since 1993, he has been a part-time Professor
at the Electric Power Systems group, Delft Univer-
sity of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands, and also
with the Eindhoven University of Technology since
2000. He is also with TenneT, the Dutch Transmis-
sion SystemOperator in the Transmission Operations
Department. His main research interests include plan-
ning and operation of power systems. He is leading
research on Intelligent Power System. He is an author and reviewer for IEEE
Power Engineering Society Journals and is involved with the International Coun-
cil on Large Electric Systems (CIGRE).
Prof. Kling is the Dutch representative in Study Committee C6 Distribution
Systems and Dispersed Generation of CIGRE and the Dutch member of its
Administrative Council.
Ralph L. Hendriks (S04M05) received the B.Sc.
and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from
the Delft University of Technology, Delft, The
Netherlands, in 2003 and 2005, respectively, where,
since 2005, he has been working toward the Ph.D.
degree on the combination of HVDC interconnectors
and offshore wind farms with the Electrical Power
Systems Group.
Riccardo Vailati received the M.Sc. degree in electri-
cal engineering from Universit a degli Studi di Pavia,
Strada Nuova, Pavia, Italy, in 2000.
He was an Assistant Researcher under contract at
the Department of Electrical Engineering, Universit a
degli Studi di Pavia for one year in the eld of power
system optimization. Then, for ve years he was a
T&DSystems Consultant in CESI, Milan, Italy. Since
2006, he has been with CESI RICERCA, Milan, as
Leader of the System Development Research Group
in the Network and Infrastructures Department. His
research interests include power system economics and analysis.
Dr. Vailati is a member of the Italian Electrotechnical and Technology Associ-
ation (AEIT), and of International Council on Large Electric Systems (CIGRE).
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