STATCOM Impact Study on the Integration of a Large Wind Farm into a Weak Loop Power System

• Published in: IEEE transactions on energy conversion 2008-03, Vol.23 (1), p.226-233
• Main Authors: Chong Han, Huang, A.Q., Baran, M.E., Bhattacharya, S., Litzenberger, W., Anderson, L., Johnson, A.L., Edris, A.-A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Automatic voltage control; Computer simulation; Dynamical systems; Dynamics; Electric potential; Electric power generation; Impact study; Pollution; Power supply; Power system analysis computing; Power system modeling; Power systems; static synchronous compensator (STATCOM); Strategy; Studies; Voltage; Voltage control; voltage fluctuation; Voltage fluctuations; voltage stability; Wind energy; wind farm (WF); Wind farms; Wind power generation
• ISSN: 0885-8969; 1558-0059
• DOI: 10.1109/TEC.2006.888031

Recently, renewable wind energy is enjoying a rapid growth globally to become an important green electricity source to replace polluting and exhausting fossil fuel. However, with wind being an uncontrollable resource and the nature of distributed wind induction generators, integrating a large-scale wind-farm into a power system poses challenges, particularly in a weak power system. In the paper, the impact of static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) to facilitate the integration of a large wind farm (WF) into a weak power system is studied. First, an actual weak power system with two nearby large WFs is introduced. Based on the field SCADA data analysis, the power quality issues are highlighted and a centralized STATCOM is proposed to solve them, particularly the short-term (seconds to minutes) voltage fluctuations. Second, a model of the system, WF, and STATCOM for steady state and dynamic impact study is presented, and the model is validated by comparing with the actual field data. Using simulated PV and QV curves, voltage control and stability issues are analyzed, and the size and location of STATCOM are assessed. Finally, a STATCOM control strategy for voltage fluctuation suppression is presented and dynamic simulations verify the performance of proposed STATCOM and its control strategy.