Active use of DFIG based wind farms for transient stability improvement during grid disturbances

• Published in: 2009 IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting pp. 1 - 8
• Main Authors: Meegahapola, L., Flynn, D., Kennedy, J., Littler, T.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.07.2009
• Subjects: decoupled operation; DFIG; inertial response; Power electronics; Power engineering and energy; Power system control; Power system modeling; Power system protection; Power system reliability; Power system stability; Power systems; reactive power support; Renewable energy resources; voltage stability; Wind farms
• ISBN: 9781424442416; 1424442419
• ISSN: 1932-5517
• DOI: 10.1109/PES.2009.5275384

The doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG) now represents the dominant technology in wind turbine design. One consequence of this is limited damping and inertial response during transient grid disturbances. A dasiadecoupledpsila strategy is therefore proposed to operate the DFIG grid-side converter (GSC) as a static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) during a fault, supporting the local voltage, while the DFIG operates as a fixed-speed induction generator (FSIG) providing an inertial response. The modeling aspects of the decoupled control strategy, the selection of protection control settings, the significance of the fault location and operation at sub- and super-synchronous speeds are analyzed in detail. In addition, a case study is developed to validate the proposed strategy under different wind penetrations levels. The simulations show that suitable configuration of the decoupled strategy can be deployed to improve system voltage stability and inertial response for a range of scenarios, especially at high wind penetration. The conclusions are placed in context of the practical limitations of the technology employed and the system conditions.