Harmonic Mitigation Methods in Large Offshore Wind Power Plants

Abstract — Various sources of harmonic problems in large wind power plants (WPPs) and optimized harmonic mitigation methods are presented in this paper. The harmonic problems such as sources of harmonic emission and amplification as well as harmonic stability are identified. Also modern preventive and remedial harmonic mitigation methods in terms of passive and active filtering are described. It is shown that WPP components such as long HVAC cables and park transformers can introduce significant low-frequency resonances which can affect wind turbine control system operation and overall WPP stability as well as amplification of harmonic distortion. It is underlined that there is a potential in terms of active filtering in modern grid-side converters in e.g. wind turbines, STATCOMs or HVDC stations utilized in modern large WPPs. It is also emphasized that the grid-side converter controller should be characterized by sufficient harmonic/noise rejection and adjusted depending on WPPs to which it is connected. Keywords—active filtering, grid-side converter, harmonics; harmonic analysis; wind turbine, wind power plant. I