Computational Studies of Voltage Regulation Provided by Wind Farms Through Reactive Power Control

Abstract The ever-growing demand for energy sources of low environmental impact has given a greater importance to wind farms in many countries. However, due to operational characteristics of these complexes, which are reflected into a variability of the energy produced and in the use of power electronic converters, the interaction between wind power plants and electrical networks shows itself to be an area of high investigative interest. In fact, among the various phenomena that exist, steady state voltage variations constitute a theme that is under the constant attention of electrical system operators. In this context, the present article is directed toward the analysis of a voltage regulation strategy aimed at wind power generation systems composed by synchronous machines and full converters. Once established the methodology that lead to an ancillary operation of the wind farm, the authors present results of computational simulations on ATP/EMTP platform that attest to the efficiency of the strategy.