Document Type

Report

Abstract

The last 25 years have seen dramatic maturation of the wind energy industry. Increases in wind energy production have been tied to advancements in turbine technology, reliability, and grid compatibility; wind resource assessment, and reductions in costs. Wind energy is economically competitive with, and environmentally superior to conventional fossil and nuclear fuel-based electric power plants. Wind turbine grid connection requirements have become more demanding concomitant with increasing grid penetration. Wind generation system are now required to perform many of the duties of conventional electric power plants, such as stabilization of the grid during fault events. Unfortunately the most common and economical wind turbine architecture, which employs a doubly fed induction generator (DFIG), is prone to severe damaged while supporting the grid these fault events. Conventional modifications for providing ride-through result in limited control of the wind turbine and only modest protection during fault events. A new electrical architecture for the DFIG wind turbine was envisioned that would draw on elements of a dynamic voltage restorer (DVR). Through proper configuration and control of a DC/AC power converter, a DVR allows a sensitive utility load to be protected from grid disturbances. In the proposed DFIG architecture, the DC/AC converter power converter nominally connected in parallel with the grid in the conventional DFIG architecture is now connected in series with the grid. Conceptually this modification is straightforward, but it capabilities and implications for wind turbine operation were more enigmatic.

Publication Date

9-30-2006

Comments

Link Foundation Fellowship for the years 2004-2006

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.