Comparative evaluation of different power quality issues of variable speed wind turbines

Abstract

The generation of wind energy deliberately becomes a significant part of generated electrical power in developed nations. Factors like fluctuation in natural wind speed and the use of power electronics present issues related power quality in wind turbine application. Following to the fact that there have been remarkable increase of wind energy in the electrical energy production worldwide, the effect on power quality and power system stability caused by wind power is considered significant, and hence the evaluation of this effect is crucial and obligatory. In order to examine and evaluate the characteristics of power quality of grid-integration of wind power in a persistent and authentic manner, several guidelines were introduced and established. One of the widely used guideline to define power quality of wind turbine is IEC standard 61400-21. Moreover, power system operator demands wind turbines to tolerate a certain voltage dip in some countries. The wind turbines concepts such as doubly-fed induction generator wind turbine and the direct driven wind turbine wind turbine with a permanent magnet synchronous generator are considered as the most promising concepts among other wind turbine types since they can operate in wide range of wind speed. The major goal of this PhD work is to examine the power quality character aspects of these wind turbine concepts. The power quality problems were calculated according to that devised by IEC- 61400-21 and then compared afterwards. The research includes the evaluation of the following power quality characteristics: voltage dip response, current harmonics distortion, control of active and reactive power and voltage flicker. Besides the IEC-standard 61400-21, the study also looks into the short-circuit current and fault-ride through with specifications provided by some grid codes, as power system stability is greatly influenced by these aspects. In order to achieve the research’s goal, a reliable dynamic model of wind turbine system and control are required. Thus a complete model for both wind turbines systems was developed in PSCAD/EMTDC simulation-program which is the fanatical power system analysis tool, which can achieve a complete simulation of the system dynamic behaviour from the wind turbine. Two controllers are adopted for wind turbine system, converter control and pitch angle control. The converter controlled by a vector control in order to regulate the active and the reactive power whereas the pitch control scheme is put to function to limit the aerodynamic power in high wind speed. The ability of providing adequate state steady and dynamic performances are what wind turbine assures, as examined by simulation results, and via this, problems related to power quality caused by integrating wind turbines to the grid can be studied by wind turbine model.