Fast voltage control in wind power plants

Abstract

Growing percentages of wind power penetration translate to more demanding requirements from grid codes. Recently, voltage support at the point of connection has been introduced by several grid codes from around the world, thus, making it important to analyze this control when applied to wind power plants. Some wind power plants' turbine technologies can and should deliver voltage control with features and performance that are equivalent or improved compared to other bulk power plant technologies. With a large number of distributed controllable sources of active and reactive power, plant level control involves advanced dispatching and fast communication, two areas that have recently progressed in the application of wind plant voltage control. This paper presents a summary and analysis of the voltage control topologies, with a systematic approach to pass from overall plant performance requirements, through a process linearisation, control system design and synthesis of the plant and power system, to reach simulated and measured wind power plant performance, assessed with metrics meaningful to compliance with grid connection codes.