• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.205-213
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• 2014

A wind generator (WG) maximum power point tracking (MPPT) system is presented here. It comprises of a variable-speed wind generator, a high-efficiency boost-type dc/dc converter and a control unit. The advantages of the aimed system are that it does not call for the knowledge of the wind speed or the optimal power characteristics and that it operates at a variable speed, thus providing high efficiency. The WG operates at variable speed and thus suffers lower stress on the shafts and gears compared to constant-speed systems. It results in a better exploitation of the available wind energy, especially in the low wind-speed range of 2.5-4.5 m/s. It does not depend on the WG wind and rotor-speed ratings or the dc/dc converter power rating. Higher reliability, lower complexity and cost, and less mechanical stress of the WG. It can be applied to battery-charging applications.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.820-826
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• 2014

It is well known that energy generated by a wind generator (WG) depends on the wind resources at the installation site. In other words, a WG installed in a high wind speed area can produce more energy than that in a low wind speed area. However, a WG installed at a low wind site can produce a similar amount of energy to that produced by a WG installed at a high wind site if the WG is designed with a rated wind speed corresponding to the mean wind speed of the site. In this paper, we investigated the power curve of a WG suitable for Korea's southwestern coast with a low mean wind speed to achieve a high capacity factor (CF). We collected the power curves of the 11 WGs of the 6 WG manufacturers. The probability density function of the wind speed on Korea's southwestern coast was modeled using the Weibull distribution. The annual energy production by the WG was calculated and then the CFs of all of the WGs were estimated and compared. The results indicated that the WG installed on the Korea's southwestern coast could obtain a CF higher than 40 % if it was designed with the lower rated speed corresponding to the mean wind speed at the installation site.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.56 no.5
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• pp.854-859
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• 2007

A wind farm consists of many wind generator(WG)s therefore, it is generally a complex power system. A wind farm as a distributed generation(DG) affects utility power system. If a conventional protection schemes are applied, it is difficult to detect faults correctly and the schemes can't provide proper coordination in some cases. This paper presents a protection algorithm for a wind farm which consists of a looped collection circuit. Because the proposed algorithm can distinguish between an internal fault and an external fault in a wind farm, The proposed algorithm can disconnect the faulted section in a wind farm. This algorithm is based on an overcurrent protection technique with the change of the ratio of the output current of a generator to the current of the looped line connected to each generator to collect the each generator's power. In addition, operating time of the algorithm is shortened by using the voltage drop at a generator collection point. The performance of the proposed algorithm was verified under various fault conditions using PSCAD/EMTDC simulations.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.1029-1039
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• 2013

To avoid undesirable disconnection of healthy wind generators (WGs) or a wind power plant, a WG protection relay should discriminate among faults, so that it can operate instantaneously for WG, connected feeder or connection bus faults, it can operate after a delay for inter-tie or grid faults, and it can avoid operating for parallel WG or adjacent feeder faults. A WG protection relay based on the positive- and negative-sequence fault components is proposed in the paper. At stage 1, the proposed relay uses the magnitude of the positive-sequence component in the fault current to distinguish faults requiring non-operation response from those requiring instantaneous or delayed operation responses. At stage 2, the fault type is first determined using the relationships between the positive- and negative-sequence fault components. Then, the relay differentiates between instantaneous operation and delayed operation based on the magnitude of the positive-sequence fault component. Various fault scenarios involving changes in position and type of fault and faulted phases are used to verify the performance of the relay. This paper concludes by implementing the relay on a hardware platform based on a digital signal processor. Results indicate that the relay can successfully distinguish the need for instantaneous, delayed, or non-operation.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.827-834
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• 2014

In order to meet the low voltage ride-through requirement in a grid code, a wind power plant (WPP) has to stay connected to a grid, supporting the voltage recovery for a grid fault. To do this, a plant-level controller as well as a wind generator (WG) controller is essential. The dynamic response of a WPP should be analyzed in order to design a plant-level controller. The dynamic response of a WPP for a grid fault is the collective response of all WGs, which depends on the wind speed approaching the WG. Thus, the dynamic response of a WPP should be analyzed by taking the wake effect into consideration, because different wind speeds at WGs will result in different responses of the WPP. This paper analyzes the response of a doubly fed induction generator (DFIG)-based offshore WPP with a grid fault taking into account the wake effect. To obtain the approaching wind speed of a WG in a WPP, we considered the cumulative impact of multiple shadowing and the effect of the wind direction. The voltage, reactive power, and active power at the point of common coupling of a 100 MW DFIG-based offshore WPP were analyzed during and after a grid fault under various wind and fault conditions using an EMTP-RV simulator. The results clearly demonstrate that not considering the wake effect leads to significantly different results, particularly for the reactive power and active power, which could potentially lead to incorrect conclusions and / or control schemes for a WPP.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.1021-1028
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• 2013

The frequency of a power system should be kept within limits to produce high-quality electricity. For a power system with a high penetration of wind generators (WGs), difficulties might arise in maintaining the frequency, because modern variable speed WGs operate based on the maximum power point tracking control scheme. On the other hand, the wind speed that arrives at a downstream WG is decreased after having passed one WG due to the wake effect. The rotor speed of each WG may be different from others. This paper proposes an algorithm for assigning the droop of each WG in a wind power plant (WPP) based on the rotor speed for the virtual inertial control considering the wake effect. It assumes that each WG in the WPP has two auxiliary loops for the virtual inertial control, i.e. the frequency deviation loop and the rate of change of frequency (ROCOF) loop. To release more kinetic energy, the proposed algorithm assigns the droop of each WG, which is the gain of the frequency deviation loop, depending on the rotor speed of each WG, while the gains for the ROCOF loop of all WGs are set to be equal. The performance of the algorithm is investigated for a model system with five synchronous generators and a WPP, which consists of 15 doubly-fed induction generators, by varying the wind direction as well as the wind speed. The results clearly indicate that the algorithm successfully reduces the frequency nadir as a WG with high wind speed releases more kinetic energy for the virtual inertial control. The algorithm might help maximize the contribution of the WPP to the frequency support.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.496-503
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• 2015

In order to let a wind generator (WG) support the frequency control of a power system, a conventional inertial control algorithm using the rate of change of frequency (ROCOF) and frequency deviation loops was suggested. The ROCOF loop is prevailing at the initial stage of the disturbance, but the contribution becomes smaller as time goes on. Moreover, its contribution becomes negative after the frequency rebound. This paper proposes an inertial control algorithm of a wind power plant (WPP) using the maximum ROCOF and frequency deviation loops. The proposed algorithm replaces the ROCOF loop in the conventional inertial control algorithm with the maximum ROCOF loop to retain the maximum value of the ROCOF and eliminate the negative effect after the frequency rebound. The algorithm releases more kinetic energy both before and after the frequency rebound and increases the frequency nadir more than the conventional ROCOF and frequency loops. The performance of the algorithm was investigated under various wind conditions in a model system, which includes a doubly-fed induction generator-based WPP using an EMTP-RV simulator. The results indicate that the algorithm can improve the frequency drop for a disturbance by releasing more kinetic energy.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.504-510
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• 2015

Because wind generators (WGs) in a wind power plant (WPP) produce different active powers due to wake effects, the reactive power capability of each WG is different. This paper proposes a hierarchical voltage control scheme for a WPP that uses a WPP controller and WG controller. In the proposed scheme, the WPP controller determines a voltage error signal by using a PI controller and sends it to a doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG). Based on the reactive current-voltage ($I_Q-V$) characteristic of a DFIG, the DFIG injects an appropriate reactive power corresponding to the voltage error signal. To enhance the voltage recovery capability, the gains of the $I_Q-V$ characteristic of a DFIG are modified depending on its reactive current capability so that a DFIG with greater reactive current capability may inject more reactive power. The proposed scheme enables the WPP to recover the voltage at the point of common coupling (PCC) to the nominal value within a short time after a disturbance by using the adaptive $I_Q-V$ characteristics of a DFIG. The performance of the proposed scheme was investigated for a 100 MW WPP consisting of 20 units of 5 MW DFIGs for small and larger disturbances. The results show the proposed scheme successfully recovers the PCC voltage within a short time after a disturbance.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.1363-1369
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• 2015

The frequency of a power system should be maintained within the allowed limits for stable operation. When a disturbance such as generator tripping occurs in a power system, the frequency is recovered to the nominal value through the inertial, primary, and secondary responses of the operating synchronous generators (SGs). However, for a power system with high wind penetration, the system inertia will decrease significantly because wind generators (WGs) are operating decoupled from the power system. This paper proposes a dynamic droop-based inertial control for a WG. The proposed inertial control determines the dynamic droop depending on the rate of change of frequency (ROCOF). At the initial period of a disturbance, where the ROCOF is large, the droop is set to be small to release a large amount of the kinetic energy (KE) and thus the frequency nadir can be increased significantly. However, as times goes on, the ROCOF will decrease and thus the droop is set to be large to prevent over-deceleration of the rotor speed of a WG. The performance of the proposed inertial control was investigated in a model system, which includes a 200 MW wind power plant (WPP) and five SGs using an EMTP-RV simulator. The test results indicate that the proposed scheme improves the frequency nadir significantly by releasing a large amount of the KE during the initial period of a disturbance.