Small-Signal Modelling and Analysis of Doubly-Fed Induction Generators in Wind Power Applications

The worldwide demand for more diverse and greener energy supply has had a significant impact on the development of wind energy in the last decades. From 2 GW in 1990, the global installed capacity has now reached about 100 GW and is estimated to grow to 1000 GW by 2025. As wind power penetration increases, it is important to investigate its effect on the power system. Among the various technologies available for wind energy conversion, the doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG) is one of the preferred solutions because it offers the advantages of reduced mechanical stress and optimised power capture thanks to variable speed operation. This work presents the small-signal modelling and analysis of the DFIG for power system stability studies. This thesis starts by reviewing the mathematical models of wind turbines with DFIG convenient for power system studies. Different approaches proposed in the literature for the modelling of the turbine, drive-train, generator, rotor converter and external power system are discussed. It is shown that the flexibility of the drive train should be represented by a two-mass model in the presence of a gearbox. In the analysis part, the steady-state behaviour of the DFIG is examined. Comparison is made with the conventional synchronous generators (SG) and squirrel-cage induction generators to highlight the differences between the machines. The initialisation of the DFIG dynamic variables and other operating quantities is then discussed. Various methods are briefly reviewed and a step-by-step procedure is suggested to avoid the iterative computations in initial condition mentioned in the literature. The dynamical behaviour of the DFIG is studied with eigenvalue analysis. Modal analysis is performed for both open-loop and closed-loop situations. The effect of parameters and operating point variations on small signal stability is observed. For the open-loop DFIG, conditions on machine parameters are obtained to ensure stability of the system. For the closed-loop DFIG, it is shown that the generator electrical transients may be neglected once the converter controls are properly tuned. A tuning procedure is proposed and conditions on proportional gains are obtained for stable electrical dynamics. Finally, small-signal analysis of a multi-machine system with both SG and DFIG is performed. It is shown that there is no common mode to the two types of generators. The result confirms that the DFIG does not introduce negative damping to the system, however it is also shown that the overall effect of the DFIG on the power system stability depends on several structural factors and a general statement as to whether it improves or detriorates the oscillatory stability of a system can not be made

Advanced Control Strategy of DFIG Wind Turbines for Power System Fault Ride Through

This paper presents an advanced control strategy for the rotor and grid side converters of the doubly fed induction generator (DFIG) based wind turbine (WT) to enhance the low-voltage ride-through (LVRT) capability according to the grid connection requirement. Within the new control strategy, the rotor side controller can convert the imbalanced power into the kinetic energy of the WT by increasing its rotor speed, when a low voltage due to a grid fault occurs at, e.g., the point of common coupling (PCC). The proposed grid side control scheme introduces a compensation term reflecting the instantaneous DC-link current of the rotor side converter in order to smooth the DC-link voltage fluctuations during the grid fault. A major difference from other methods is that the proposed control strategy can absorb the additional kinetic energy during the fault conditions, and significantly reduce the oscillations in the stator and rotor currents and the DC bus voltage. The effectiveness of the proposed control strategy has been demonstrated through various simulation cases. Compared with conventional crowbar protection, the proposed control method can not only improve the LVRT capability of the DFIG WT, but also help maintaining continuous active and reactive power control of the DFIG during the grid faults

The impact of wind generators on a Powe system's transient stability

This thesis discusses the investigations carried out on the different types of wind generators and how these would affect the transient stability of a hypothetical power network as presented in this report. Focus was on the transient responses of the conventional synchronous generator’s rotor angle and terminal voltage when connected to different types of wind generators. The three different wind generator technologies explored were the squirrel cage induction generator (SCIG), doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG) and the converter driven synchronous generator (CDSG)

A New Hybrid Artificial Neural Network Based Control of Doubly Fed Induction Generator

In this paper, Hybrid Artificial Neural Network (ANN) with Proportional Integral (PI) control technique has been developed for Doubly Fed Induction Generator (DFIG) based wind energy generation system and the performance of the system is compared with NN and PI control techniques. With the increasing use of wind power generation, it is required to instigate the dynamic performance analysis of Doubly Fed Induction Generator under various operating conditions. In this paper, three control techniques have been proposed, the first one is using PI controller, the second one is ANN control, and the third one is based on combination of ANN and PI. The performance of the proposed control techniques is demonstrated through the results, determined by using MATLab/Simulink. From the results it is observed that the dynamic performance of the DFIG is improved with the Hybrid control technique

LVRT and HVRT control strategies of doubly- fed induction generator

The Doubly Fed Induction Generator (DFIG) has a high sensitivity to the Grid Faults (GFs), which can cause many problems on the power quality and the production continuity. Actually, the grid connection requirements impose strict laws to respect to Low Voltage Ride Through (LVRT), High Voltage Ride Through (HVRT), and grid support capacities following the Grid Codes (GCs). In fact, when detecting voltage fault, Wind Turbines (WTs) should stay in connection with the grid in order to hold a safe and stable operation. The main objective of this work is to propose LVRT and HVRT strategies able to retain WTs connected to the grid during severe grid voltage faults. The proposed approach is a hybrid method combining two methods (active and passive methods): The first aim is to develop the control of DFIG, while the second is applied for severe voltage faults using hardware protection circuits

Comparative power quality study of variable speed wind turbines

Due to the variabilities inherent to natural wind resources and the associated electronic power present, wind power produces fluctuations in the generated power and harmonic injection entering the electric grid. This paper compares power quality issues and the impact on the power system of wind reliant power systems when using two different types of variable speed wind generators: the direct-drive permanent-magnet synchronous generator, and the doubly-fed induction generator. First, it gives an overview of the system structure of each generator, and then both systems are simulated to determine their behavior and the consequent impact on power quality. The power quality aspects addressed are voltage fluctuation (Flicker), current harmonics, response to voltage dip, and voltage stability. After this assessment, the contribution of both generators to severe three-phase faults was tested and then, finally, fault-ride through

Wind farm stabilization by using DFIG with current controlled voltage source converters taking grid codes into consideration

Recent wind farm grid codes require wind generators to ride through voltage sags, which means that normal power production should be re-initiated once the nominal grid voltage is recovered. However, fixed speed wind turbine generator system using induction generator (IG) has the stability problem similar to the step-out phenomenon of a synchronous generator. On the other hand, doubly fed induction generator (DFIG) can control its real and reactive powers independently while being operated in variable speed mode. This paper proposes a new control strategy using DFIGs for stabilizing a wind farm composed of DFIGs and IGs, without incorporating additional FACTS devices. A new current controlled voltage source converter (CC-VSC) scheme is proposed to control the converters of DFIG and the performance is verified by comparing the results with those of voltage controlled voltage source converter (VC-VSC) scheme. Another salient feature of this study is to reduce the number of proportionate integral (PI) controllers used in the rotor side converter without degrading dynamic and transient performances. Moreover, DC-link protection scheme during grid fault can be omitted in the proposed scheme which reduces overall cost of the system. Extensive simulation analyses by using PSCAD/EMTDC are carried out to clarify the effectiveness of the proposed CC-VSC based control scheme of DFIGs