A Cooperative Approach of Frequency Regulation Through Virtual Inertia Control and Enhancement of Low Voltage Ride-through in DFIG-based Wind Farm

Abstract

Doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG)-based wind farms (WFs) are interfaced with power electronic converters. Such interfaces are attributed to the low inertia generated in the WFs under high penetration and that becomes prevalent in a fault scenario. Therefore, transient stability enhancement along with frequency stability in DFIG-based WFs is a major concern in the present scenario. In this paper, a cooperative approach consisting of virtual inertia control (VIC) and a modified grid-side converter (GSC) approach for low voltage ride-through (LVRT) is proposed to achieve fault ride-through (FRT) capabilities as per the grid code requirements (GCRs) while providing frequency support to the grid through a synthetic inertia. The proposed approach provides LVRT and reactive power compensation in the system. The participation of the VIC in a rotor-side converter (RSC) provides frequency support to the DFIG-based WFs. The combined approach supports active power compensation and provides sufficient kinetic energy support to the system in a contingency scenario. Simulation studies are carried out in MATLAB/Simulink environment for symmetrical and unsymmetrical faults. The superiority of the proposed scheme is demonstrated through analysis of the performance of the scheme and that of a series resonance bridge-type fault current limiter (SR-BFCL).

Keywords

• Virtual inertia controller (VIC)
• doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG)
• fault ride-through (FRT) capability
• wind farm (WF)
• fault current limiter (FCL)