
//INTEGRAS/KCG/P AGIN ATION/ WILEY /WPS /FINALS_1 4-12- 04/0470855088_ 29_CHA28 .3D – 636 – [629–652/24]
17.12.2004 10:51PM
When the fault is cleared, variable-speed wind turbines must resume normal opera-
tion. In contrast to the case for directly grid-coupled generators, for variable-speed
turbines there are various degrees of freedom to switch them back to normal operation.
They are not governed by the intrinsic behaviour of the generator. It would be possible,
for instance, to generate extra reactive power when the voltage starts to increase again,
in order to accelerate voltage restoration.
Another question that must be answered is what to do with the energy that is stored in
the rotating mass because of the imbalance between mechanical power supplied and
electrical power generated during the fault. One possibility is to feed the energy into the
system. This would mean that shortly after the fault the constant-speed wind turbines
would generate more power than before the fault and more than would be possible given
the actual wind speed. After a while, the wind turbines would return to normal oper-
ation where generated power was in line with wind speed. The exact course of the
transition would depend on the design of the controllers. Another possibility would
be to let the turbine generate its prefault amount of power while using the pitch
controller to slow down the rotor. The tuning of the fault response of a variable-speed
wind turbine is similar to that of a high-voltage direct-curren t (HVDC) link, which is
described extensively in the literature (Kundur, 1994).
The decoupling of mechanical rotor frequency and electrical grid frequency in variable-
speed wind turbines also affects the response of variable-speed wind turbines to changes in
grid frequency. If the grid frequency changes because of a mismatch between generation
and load, the mechanical frequency of a variable-speed wind turbine does not change.
Thus, no energy is stored in or withdrawn from the rotating mass and drawn from or
supplied to the system, as would be the case with a constant-speed wind turbine.
Rather, the controllers of the power electronic converters compensate changes in grid
frequency, and the mechanical rotor frequency is not affected. It would be possible,
however, to equip a variable-speed wind turbine with additional controllers that change
the active power based on the measured value of the grid frequency. The response would
then be similar to the intrinsic behaviour of directly grid-coupled generators, within the
limits imposed by the actual value of the wind speed, though.
28.4.2 Dynamic behaviour of wind farms
Increasingly, wind turbines are being or will be grouped in wind farms, either onshore or
offshore. Gen eral reasons behind this are the desire to use good wind locations effect-
ively and to concentrate the visual impact of wind turbines to a limited area. Modern
wind turbines can reach a total height of 150 m if one of the blades is in a vertical
position. Wind farms tend to be located offshore because the turbulence intensity is
lower, wind speeds are higher, noise problems are less severe and the visual impact is
even further redu ced if the wind farm is locat ed far away from the coastline.
There is a number of wind farm configurations that are feasible (Bauer et al., 2000). All
possible configurations share certain characteristics regarding the interaction between the
wind farm and the grid, namely those that are inherently associated with using wind
turbines for power generation. Examples of such characteristics are fluctuating output
power and poor controllability and predictability of generated power. However, the
636 Impacts on Power System Dynamics