Design, analysis and control of DC/DC converter based DC wind farms

This thesis discusses the design, operation and control of DC wind farms that use high power DC/DC converters, DC cables and DC collection networks. DC wind farms are proposed as alternatives to traditional AC wind farms due to the potential to reduce the system size, improve the speed of dynamic response and improve the system efficiency. DC wind farms involve different types of high-power DC/DC converters in different stages of power conversion. Isolated DC/DC converters are chosen as the wind turbine converters in which the intermediate transformer design is of great importance. A general and comprehensive medium frequency transformer modelling and design methodology is presented in this thesis, which considers the efficiency, leakage inductance and thermal management. The proposed methodology is applied to transformers for single phase and three phase DC/DC converters. Isolated Single Active Bridge DC/DC converters are appealing topologies for medium voltage applications. The operation of these DC/DC converters is complex and important for the converter control design. The comprehensive operational principles of three-phase single active bridge converters under changing duty cycle are investigated. Eight operating modes are identified with detailed derivation of power flow and current dynamics. The converter performances are evaluated and compared theoretically and experimentally. Then, the control of wind turbine converters in DC wind farms is designed considering both DC-link and network dynamics. To deal with the oscillations caused by smoothing reactors, a power system stabilizer based control design is developed and implemented. Furthermore, a multi-variable feedback control design using pole-placement technique is proposed. This method is able to achieve the minimum oscillatory time without compromising the dynamic performance of the DC-link voltage. Finally, taking into account the low capacitance issue in wind farms, the voltage stability of DC wind farms is investigated and different stabilizing methods are designed and analyzed. The impedance models of aggregated wind turbine converters, DC cables and the station DC/DC converter with control action are derived, in order to study the interactions between the station converter and the DC wind farm. A new equivalent capacitor control strategy to enhance the system capacitance is proposed and analyzed through various case studies.Open Acces

Design and Control of Power Converters 2019

In this book, 20 papers focused on different fields of power electronics are gathered. Approximately half of the papers are focused on different control issues and techniques, ranging from the computer-aided design of digital compensators to more specific approaches such as fuzzy or sliding control techniques. The rest of the papers are focused on the design of novel topologies. The fields in which these controls and topologies are applied are varied: MMCs, photovoltaic systems, supercapacitors and traction systems, LEDs, wireless power transfer, etc

A Robust Control for Five-level Inverter Based on Integral Sliding Mode Control

This paper presents a new control strategy for cascaded H-bridge five-level inverter (CHB-5LI) based on the novel sliding mode control (NSMC). The proposed method can generate pulse-width modulation (PWM) without using conventional modulation techniques based on carrier waves. With the proposed NSMC technique, the PWM pulses can be obtained by the control signal u(t) from the output of the sliding mode controller and the levels of comparison. To eliminate the chattering and increase the speed convergence of the controller, the integral sliding-mode surface combined with a first-order low-pass filter (LPF) is used. The stability of the control system is validated by Lyapunov theory. The simulation and experimental results show that the proposed NSMC method has strong robustness, and better performance for multi-level inverter control systems with low total harmonic distortion, Common-Mode (CM) voltage reduction, switching frequency diminution, and less switching loss

A Robust Control for Five-level Inverter Based on Integral Sliding Mode Control

This paper presents a new control strategy for cascaded H-bridge five-level inverter (CHB-5LI) based on the novel sliding mode control (NSMC). The proposed method can generate pulse-width modulation (PWM) without using conventional modulation techniques based on carrier waves. With the proposed NSMC technique, the PWM pulses can be obtained by the control signal u(t) from the output of the sliding mode controller and the levels of comparison. To eliminate the chattering and increase the speed convergence of the controller, the integral sliding-mode surface combined with a first-order low-pass filter (LPF) is used. The stability of the control system is validated by Lyapunov theory. The simulation and experimental results show that the proposed NSMC method has strong robustness, and better performance for multi-level inverter control systems with low total harmonic distortion, Common-Mode (CM) voltage reduction, switching frequency diminution, and less switching loss

Stability Boundaries for Offshore Wind Park Distributed Voltage Control

In order to identify mechanisms causing slow reactive power oscillations observed in an existing offshore wind power plant, and be able to avoid similar events in the future, voltage control is studied in this paper for a plant with a static synchronous compensator, type-4 wind turbines and a park pilot control. Using data from the actual wind power plant, all stabilizing subsystem voltage proportional-integral controller parameters are first characterized based on their Hurwitz signature. Inner loop current control is then designed using Internal Mode Control principles, and guidelines for feed forward filter design are given to obtain required disturbance rejection properties. The paper contributes by providing analytical relations between power plant control, droop, sampling time, electrical parameters and voltage control characteristics, and by assessing frequencies and damping of reactive power modes over a realistic envelope of electrical impedances and control parameters

Nonlinear Modeling of Power Electronics-based Power Systems for Control Design and Harmonic Studies

The massive integration of power electronics devices in the modern electric grid marked a turning point in the concept of stability, power quality and control in power systems. The evolution of the grid toward a converter-dominated network motivates a deep renovation of the classical power system theory developed for machine-dominated networks. The high degree of controllability of power electronics converters, furthermore, paves the way to the investigation of advanced control strategies to enhance the grid stability, resiliency and sustainability. This doctoral dissertation explores four cardinal topics in the field of power electronics-based power systems: dynamic modeling, stability analysis, converters control, and power quality with particular focus on harmonic distortion. In all four research areas, a particular attention is given to the implications of the nonlinearity of the converter models on the power system