Increase of fault ride-through capability for the grid-connected wind farms

In many countries, high level of penetration of wind energy in power systems requires revisiting the grid connection standards in terms of impact on transient voltage stability. While the presently used common practice is to disconnected the wind turbines from the grid immediately when a fault occurs somewhere in the grid, in the future the wind turbines may be required to stay connected longer and ride through the part or the whole fault transient(s). To achieve easier grid integration and reliable voltage control, active control of wind turbines is becoming an area of increasing importance. This paper presents a computer model of a multi-turbine wind energy system that is based on the candidate wind farm site on Vancouver Island, Canada. A new voltage control scheme is proposed and compared to the traditional modes of the wind turbine operation. The simulated studies demonstrate an enhancement of the proposed controller during a fault-ride-through transient