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Sidhant Pani
I. INTRODUCTION
Wind Power being one of the significant renewable resources has made impacts in the energy sector. The Wind
Turbine System has seen dramatic changes in the power
electronic technologies to harvest its potential.
The soft starters were used in 1980s to connect the squirrel cage induction generator to the power grid. Simple
SCRs were used which didnt need to carry the power
continuously.They helped to keep the inrush current in
check and ensured the gradual rise of current . In 1990s
the rotor resistance controlled wound induction motor
was used with the help of diode bridges and choppers.
They helped in reducing the mechanical stress and excess loading. Since 2000, advanced back to back converters were introduced which regulated the generated
power from wind turbine systems. Adjustable speed
generators (ASG) came into being with different topologies. One being the direct-in-the-line ASG system and
the other Doubly Fed Induction Generator (DFIG). The
DFIG was first used with Partial Scale Power Electronic
Converters (PECs)[1]. Later Full Scale Converters were
incorporated for better performance and utilisation of the
total capacity.
This report will throw light into the current technological trends of PECs and market developments for wind
power application. Finally the challenges for future utilisation of wind power will be discussed with some conclusions.
III. CURRENT POWER ELECTRONIC CONFIGURATIONS FOR THE WIND TURBINE SYSTEM
method are the steep price of the power electronic converters and the high power losses.
The 2 Level BTB configuration cannot be used here as
the whole of generated power by wind turbines( for ratings above 2 MW) is used and there will be large switching losses and many devices have to be connected in
parallel incase of low voltage level which can be quite
challenging. Other disadvantages include: higher harmonics in output voltage and current and high rate of
change in voltage (dv/dt).Hence 2 level BTB cannot be
used for this even though it has cost advantage.
To tackle with the above problem the Multi-Level converter topology was introduced. The 3 level Neutral
Point Clamped (NPC) converter is such an example as
shown in fig(6) . The more the levels the more the voltage waveform approaches the shape of a sine wave. This
also ensures low voltage change rate (dv/dt), low switching losses, lesser harmonics and lower leakage current.
The main drawback in this case is of need to incorporate
more number of switching components, which means
high cost and the complexity in the design [1]-[7].
IV. CONTROL STRUCTURE OF A WIND TURBINE
GENERATOR
The growth of wind turbines have posed another challenge: their reliability. The individual capacity increases
the damage cost of failures. Stability of the power grid
will be a problem when all of a sudden a large amount of
power capacity goes missing. As a result it can be concluded that the reliability performance is critical to the
designed configuration. It has been found that the control and power electronic components have a failure rate
2 to 4 times when compared to other sub systems. Thus
improvement in the quality of the circuits under these
can reduce the cost of wind power. In automotive industry various tests are performed to determine the the cost
and reliability of the machine. some of them are stress
analysis, profile mapping and online monitoring of the
converter.
C. SOME ADVANCED GRID INTEGRATION FEATURES
1.1 Protection and Islanding Operation: To lessen the
impact of sudden changes in the speed of wind and ensure stability the wind turbines/farms are supposed to be
a distributed generation network consisting of many
small power stations connected to the medium voltage
grid. Their power flows and other electrical features are
different than the traditional systems which are generally
connected to the high voltage grid. This will change the
current protection scheme and the security will be ensured at the distribution level and allowing the islanding
operation on the wind turbines and the local loads.
With the advancement in wind technologies it is also
expected from the WTS to start by itself after the faults
are cleared i.e. without taking any power from the grid.
1.2 Configuring the Wind Power Plants/Farm: With the
growth of the wind power capacity, large wind farms
have been developed which house many wind turbines.
They have significant impact on the grid in terms of
power quality and controlling the grid systems. Power
Electronic Technologies play an important role in ensuring this. As seen earlier the DFIG with partial scale converter has no control on the reactive power, hence a
STATCOM is used as a reactive power compensator to
meet the grid requirements. However the full scale converter offers control on the reactive power which renders
the removal of reactive power compensators from the
grid system.
For Long Transmission HVDC is also a good option
which essentially doesn't need any voltage compensators
and can provide better efficiency with less
fluctuation[1].
VII. CONCLUSION
The increase in demand for power and the depletion of
non renewable resources forced mankind to look for
renewable energy solutions. This led to development of
wind power along with other solutions. The main purpose of the renewable energy solutions is to reduce the
cost of energy and secure a safer future.
Current configurations in wind turbine systems suggest
many possible improvements that can be made to make
the wind farms function like the conventional power
plants. Recent improvements have ensured its better
integration to the grid. The advancements in power electronics are expected to make revolutionary changes in
the wind power systems, the main concern being grid
integration and compatibility with the power system.
It is expected that the wind power systems will grow at a
higher rate with every year coming by.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The author would like to thank Mr. Adarsh S for his
guidance in completing the report.
REFERENCES
[1] Frede Blaabjerg and and Ke Ma,Future on Power
Electronics for wind turbine systems,IEEE Power Electronics, sept 2013.
[2] David Juri Freeman and Lisa A. Skumatz, Comparing Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy, and Generation,ACEEE Energy Efficiency as a Resource, sept
2011.
[3] Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (aug 2015), Wind
power by country. Available: en.wikipedia.org
[4] Business spectator, Australia (Mar 2015). Global
Wind Installations. Available: businessspectator.com/au
[5] Recharge News (may 2014), Siemens Plans 10 MW
by 2020.
[6] S. Muller,M. Deicker,Rik W.,DE Doncker, Doubly
Fed Induction Generator Systems for Wind Turbines,
IEEE Industry Application Magazine, May-June 2002.
[7] Long Pham, A Review of Full Scale Converter for
Wind Turbines. Available: academia.edu
[8] Wikipedia ,the free encyclopedia(aug 2015),Wind
Power in Denmark. Available: en.wikipedia.org