Experimental Study of the Summation of Flicker Caused by Wind Turbines

Integration of wind energy into the grid faces a great challenge regarding power quality. The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 61400-21 standard defines the electrical characteristics that need to be assessed in a Wind Turbine (WT), as well as the procedure to measure the disturbances...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEnergies (Basel) Vol. 12; no. 12; p. 2404
Main Authors Redondo, Koldo, Gutiérrez, José Julio, Azcarate, Izaskun, Saiz, Purificación, Leturiondo, Luis Alberto, Ruiz de Gauna, Sofía
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 22.06.2019
Subjects
Emission standards
Emissions
Energy
Equivalent circuits
Flicker
Industrial plant emissions
Laboratories
Methods
Power plants
power quality
Quality
Time series
Turbines
Variation
voltage fluctuations
Wind power
wind power plant
Wind speed
Denmark
Switzerland
Spain
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Summary:Integration of wind energy into the grid faces a great challenge regarding power quality. The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 61400-21 standard defines the electrical characteristics that need to be assessed in a Wind Turbine (WT), as well as the procedure to measure the disturbances produced by the WT. One of the parameters to be assessed are voltage fluctuations or flicker. To estimate the flicker emission of a Wind Power Plant (WPP), the standard establishes that a quadratic exponent should be used in the summation of the flicker emission of each WT. This exponent was selected based on studies carried out in WPPs with type I and II WTs. Advances in wind turbine technology have reduced their flicker emission, mainly thanks to the implementation of power electronics for the partial or total management of the power injected into the grid. This work is based on measurements from a WPP with 16 type III WTs. The flicker emission of a single WT and of the WPP were calculated. Low flicker emission values at the Point of Common Coupling (PCC) of the WPP were obtained. The flicker estimation at the PCC, based on the measurement from a single WT, was analyzed using different exponents. The results show that a cubic summation performs better than the quadratic one in the estimation of the flicker emission of a WPP with type III WTs.
ISSN:1996-1073
1996-1073
DOI:10.3390/en12122404