Siew Peng (Maggie) Phuan

PhD in the area of HV cable system modelling

Hi, I'm Siew Peng (Maggie) Phuan and I studied within Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute at the University of Southampton.

I graduated with a B.E degree in Electrical Engineering from University of New South Wales, Australia and worked as a Project Engineer in the Oil and Gas industry in Singapore. I obtained an MSc degree with Merit in Energy & Sustainability with Electrical Power Engineering from the University of Southampton in 2011 and am continuing to pursue PhD studies at Southampton.

At present, export cables connecting off-shore wind farms back to shore are sized based on a continuous current rating under steady state conditions. However, with the inherent variability of wind generation, this conventional design rules using existing thermal models can lead to a very conservative (and more expensive) system. New modelling techniques are essential in driving down the cost of connecting offshore renewable energy projects to the grid for the benefit of consumers.

Supervisors: Dr James Pilgrim and Professor Paul Lewin
The project focusses on developing statistical rating techniques for wind farm export cables applicable to existing AC transmission and eventually to HVDC transmission systems. All thermal sections of the cable will be considered (that is burial at sea, landfalls with and without horizontal directional drills, land cable sections and J-tube installation) for the model. A range of thermal models will also be considered, including traditional thermal-electrical analogue approaches and techniques such as Finite Element Analysis.