Dynamic Compensation Studies using RTDS for Large Wind Farm Integration with Grid

Amongst all renewable energy sources so far identifi ed in India for commercial exploitation, wind energy is the one, which has been found to be more viable for generation of grid quality power. Following recent growth of wind generation, utilities have responded by developing various interconnection requirements/guidelines to which the wind farm must abide. The guidelines provide for penalty to be levied by State Electricity Boards, if the projects fail to achieve minimum monthly average power factor of specifi ed value at the coupling point. Suitable penalties are also levied for reactive power to discourage drawl of reactive power from the grid and to avoid free wheeling of the machine.

Majority of wind generator topologies are asynchronous machines, which draws reactive power from the grid. Thus, there is a requirement that the wind farms be self suffi cient with respect to the needs of reactive power of the wind farm. The methods of reactive power control may be provided in the form of capacitor banks, static power converter based devices (SVC, TSC, or STATCOM) or by employing machines capable of reactive power control, such as the doubly-fed induction machine topology.

This paper discusses the results of grid integration studies of wind farms, based on three phase dynamic simulation utilizing the real time digital simulator (RTDS). It investigates the application of STATCOM for a typical wind farm for providing an effective means in dynamic voltage control of the wind farm, meet the reactive power requirements of the wind farm and enhance the capability of the wind farm to ride through the grid disturbances.