Power quality assessment in different wind power plant models

In order to fully study the power quality of a grid-connected wind farm, a suitable model providing accurate output for wind farms is necessary. In this paper, different methods, which have been proposed in previous studies, are investigated with regard to the power quality problem using a squirrel-cage induction generator wind turbine. These models are different in terms of accuracy and simulation time. The question is: which method is more suitable for simulation of a wind farm? To answer this question, a criterion should be introduced to compare different modeling methods. Full turbine representation is introduced as the best criterion to compare equivalent models of a wind farm such as quasi-multiturbine representation, single turbine representation, and multiturbine representation. A typical medium-sized wind farm is simulated using the full model and several equivalent models. These equivalent models are compared with the full model considering the accuracy and simulation time (computational load). These models are used to calculate the voltage, flicker, active, and reactive powers at the point of common coupling. The TurbSim and RPM-Sim programs are used to simulate the wind profile and wind farm. Results show significant differences between equivalent models outputs.