Modeling of Wind Energy Conversion System using PSCAD/EMTDC

Abstract

This paper aims to model a complete wind energy conversion system (WECS) connected to a grid. The motivation comes from the Distributed Generation System (DGS) installed at the Renewable Energy Lab at UMass Lowell. The objective of this work is to develop universal and standardized manufacturer independent textbook models. Manufacturer specific models are more accurate and detailed, but proprietary and non-disclosure agreements become an issue for research purposes. Since the wind turbines installed in the lab are VSWT (Variable Speed Wind Turbine) with Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generators (PMSG), so such a turbine system is modeled to represent them in general. PMSG requires very less maintenance and has high efficiency since it doesn't have rotor current and is used without a gearbox. Further, there are two more advantages: first, it has the capability of variable speed control due to the fact that its rotor speed can change in a large range; second, it's excitation system is independent of the grid and require any other excitation source. In addition to the turbine generator, other main components of WECS are also modeled namely: wind source model, wind turbine, permanent magnet synchronous generator and AC/DC/AC control. The equations governing these models are also discussed. The entire generation system is implemented on PSCAD/EMTDC and integrated to a grid and a basic fault analysis is done under different conditions. The proposed model can be used for research purposes on distributed generation issues. This model provides a good software simulation test bed for further research.