Design and Implementation of an Online Efficiency-Optimized Multi-Functional Compensator for Wind Turbine Generators

In recent years, the penetration of wind power generation has been growing steadily to adapt to the modern trend of boosting renewable energy (RE)-based power generation. However, the dynamic power flow of wind turbine generators (WTGs) is unpredictable and can have a negative impact on existing power grids. To solve this problem efficiently, this paper presents a multifunctional WTG intelligent compensator (WTGIC) for the advanced power management and compensation of power systems embedded with WTGs. The proposed WTGIC consists of a power semiconductor device (PSD)-based bidirectional three-phase inverter module and an energy storage unit (ESU). In order to reduce system costs and improve reliability, efficiency, and flexibility, various control functions and algorithms are integrated via a modularized all-digital control scheme. In this paper, the configuration of the proposed WTGIC is first introduced, and then the operating modes and related compensation and control functions are addressed. An online efficiency optimization algorithm is proposed, and the required controllers are designed and implemented. The designed functions of the proposed WTGIC include high-efficiency charging/discharging of the ESU, real-time power quality (PQ) compensation, and high-efficiency power smoothing of the WTGs. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed WTGIC are verified using case studies with simulations in the Powersim (PSIM) environment and the implementation of a small-scale hardware experimental system with TI’s digital signal processor (DSP) TI28335 as the main controller.