Integrated analysis of wind turbines - The impact of power systems on wind turbine design

Megawatt-size wind turbines nowadays operate in very complex environmental conditions, and increasingly demanding power system requirements. Pursuing a cost-effective and reliable wind turbine design is a multidisciplinary task. However nowadays, wind turbine design and research areas such as aeroelastic and mechanical, electrical and control, and grid integration, make use of simulation tools dedicated to specific areas. Practical experience shows there is a need to bridge the expertise from different design areas.
The focus of this Ph.D. study is on the integrated dynamic analysis of operating conditions that stem from disturbances in the power system. An integrated simulation environment, wind turbine models, and power system models are developed in order to take an integral perspective that considers the most important aeroelastic, structural, electrical, and control dynamics.
Applications of the integrated simulation environment are presented. The analysis of an asynchronous machine, and numerical simulations of a fixedspeed wind turbine in the integrated simulation environment, demonstrate the effects on structural loads of including the generator rotor fluxes dynamics in aeroelastic studies. Power system frequency control studies of variable-speed wind turbines with the integrated simulation environment, show that is possible to make a sensible estimation of the contribution of a wind farm to power system frequency control, while studying the impact on wind turbine structural loads.
Finally, studies of the impact that voltage faults have on wind turbine loads are presented. The case of unbalanced faults is addressed, the possibilities and drawbacks for reduction of structural loads using electrical control actions is investigated. Load reduction using resonant damping control is proven and quantified.