A power‐line communication system employing median filtering for power control enhancement of wind generators

• Published in: International journal of communication systems Vol. 35; no. 12
• Main Authors: Pereira, Samuel C., Conde, Eliomar R., Luz‐de‐Almeida, Luiz A., Filho, Alfeu J. Sguarezi, Capovilla, Carlos E., Casella, Ivan R. S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.08.2022
• Subjects: Alternative energy sources; Communications systems; DFIG; Induction generators; median filter; Monitoring; Noise prediction; Packets (communication); PLC; Power control; Predictive control; renewable energy; Renewable energy sources; Robust control; wind power; Wind power generation; Windpowered generators
• ISSN: 1074-5351; 1099-1131
• DOI: 10.1002/dac.5203

Summary The monitoring and control of renewable energy sources are extremely important to guarantee the operability of the system and the quality of the energy generated. Communication technologies play an important role in the success of these systems and, among them, power‐line communication (PLC) has shown itself to be a very promising and economically viable solution, as it uses the existing power infrastructure to transmit the monitoring and control information. In this context, this paper proposes a communication system based on the G3‐PLC standard associated with a median filter (MDF) to improve the robustness of the control operation of a wind power generation system (WPGS) composed of a doubly fed induction generator (DFIG) and a predictive controller. The MDF is employed to attenuate impulsive noise and distortions, caused by the degrading effects of the PLC channel, being possible to recover corrupted control information without the need to retransmit data packets. The complete system, that is, WPGS, G3‐PLC, and MDF, was modeled in a computational environment and analyzed over a realistic PLC channel model. Simulation results showed that the system is capable of operating with good quality, reducing latency, and enabling real‐time communication even under severe channel conditions. In this article, we propose the use of G3‐PLC technology in conjunction with a median filter to increase the robustness and reduce the latency of a communication system used in the transmission of power references to a wind turbine. Simulation results showed that the proposed system guarantees the reliability of the transmitted references even with the G3‐PLC retransmission protocol disabled, which allows to reduce the total latency of the system, making possible real‐time operation, even in severe channel conditions.