Power system dynamic enhancement using phase imbalance series capacitive compensation and doubly fed induction generator-based wind farms

ABSTRACT Wind energy is among the fastest growing renewable energy technologies in the world that has been increasing by about 30% a year globally. Wind energy has proven to be a clean, abundant and completely renewable source of energy. Owing to the rapidly increasing use of wind power, the aspect of integrating high level of penetrations wind power into the grid is becoming more and more of reality. Examples of large wind farms in the United States are the 781.5 MW Roscoe wind farm in Texas, the 735.5 MW Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center in Taylor and Nolan County, Texas, the 845 MW Shepherds Flat wind farm in Oregon and the 1550 MW Alta wind farm being developed in California. As most large wind farms in North America employ Doubly-fed Induction Generator (DFIG) wind turbines, their voltage-sourced converter-based back-to-backs offer independent control of the real and reactive power. The use of these control capabilities have been recently proposed for damping power swings, inter-area oscillations as well as subsynchronous resonance. There is, however, a question that is always associated with the use of voltage-sourced converter -based back-to-back wind farms for damping power system oscillations: what happens when there is no wind? The keyword to the answer is “combined”. The potential benefit of using these types of wind farms for damping power system oscillations should always be combined with conventional damping devices (power system stabilizers, thyristor controlled series capacitor, static synchronous series compensator, high voltage dc systems, etc.). This thesis reports the results of digital time-domain simulation studies that are carried out to investigate the potential use of supplemental controls of DFIG-based wind farms combined with a phase imbalanced hybrid series capacitive compensation scheme for damping power system oscillations. The thesis also addresses the recent concern over the case of large share of wind power generation which results in reducing the total inertia of the synchronous generators and degrading the system transient stability. In this regards, the results of the investigations have shown that in such a case; properly designed supplemental controllers for the wind farm converters could be an asset in improving the system transient stability rather than degrading it. Time-domain simulations are conducted on a benchmark model using the ElectroMagnetic Transients program (EMTP-RV)