Grid integration techniques of wind power plants (part 2)

• Main Author: Khoo, Johnny Yong Xiang.
• Other Authors: Don Mahinda Vilathgamuwa
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Power electronics
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/45824
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

With the escalating cost of fossil fuels and the increase in environmental concern for the Earth’s climate, there has been a steady increase in the demand for renewable energy. Governmental bodies and private companies around the world are pushing for the developments of more efficient renewable energy derivation. Large amount of funds have been set aside for this area of research, a string of economic incentives and government policies are being implemented to pave the way for the entrance of this technology. In this Final Year Project (FYP), the author would be focusing on Wind Power, one of the fastest growing renewable energy in the 21st century. Wind power has an annual growth rate of 31.7% with a worldwide capacity of 159.21 gigawatts (GW) at the start of the year 2010. The energy produced is sufficient to cater to the total electricity demand of Italy, which is about 2% of the global electricity consumption. As the Earth’s atmosphere is unevenly heated by the Sun due to the irregularities of its surface and the rotation on its axis, this resulted in an uneven distribution of energy from the Sun to the two poles and equator. A global atmospheric convection system is thus created and it flows from the Earth’s surface to the stratosphere, kinetic energy in these wind movements can be harnessed with the use of a wind turbine without producing any pollutant as by-product. Since the last century, wind power generation has been considered as a long term energy strategy. However, wind speed is constantly changing as it depends on the weather, local surface conditions and surrounding obstacles. As a result, the voltage magnitude and frequency of the generated output from the wind turbine will also vary and it is not suitable for grid use. It is therefore necessary to develop a controlled wind system to make sure that the quality of the generated energy output is acceptable for grid connection. Due to the complexity of the project, the author is in charge of the Front-End Converter (FEC) of the Doubly-Fed Induction Generator (DFIG) based wind power system, the Rotor-End Converter (REC) requirement will be fulfilled by another final year student. The author has to produce a three-phase Sinusoidal Pulse-Width-Modulated (SPWM) voltage-fed back-to-back converter hardware for the system. Using vector control or field-oriented control (FOC) strategy, the controller for the converter is designed using Simulink, a platform that is integrated with Matlab to model and analyse multi-domain dynamic systems. It is then downloaded onto dSPACE and the whole wind power system will undergo under real time simulation using ControlDesk. The DFIG will be driven by a variable speed Direct Current (DC) motor in the Laboratory of Clean Energy Research (LaCER) to simulate the variable wind conditions. Future works are still required to ensure that the Front-End Converter (FEC) and the Rotor-End Converter (REC) are capable of working together simultaneously to produce the desired output.