Modelling and Analysis of Static VAR Compensator for Wind Power Generation in Western Rajasthan

Abstract

Wind generation is currently the leading form of renewable generation in the world. The power generation through wind energy is totally dependent on the flow of the wind. Due to the uncertainty and randomness of wind flow, the generation of power is quite fluctuating in nature and large scale wind farms may cause significant impact to the stability and power system safety. The wind turbine generator design governs potential of the wind power produced / active power supply to the system. Conversion devices become main attributes of the reactive power demand and power quality fed to the grid. The wind farms connected to power grid cause fluctuations and reactive power redistribution, which sometimes lead to voltage collapse. Major challenges faced by power system operators are to maintain voltage variability, dynamic voltage stability and acquiring sufficient reactive power to maintain grid stability with the economic operation of power system. The easy solution is to install reactive power source devices and systems to cater the reactive power demand of the system with optimization of the existing assets to deliver required reactive power to the grid. As such the reactive power compensation becomes a utmost requirement for wind farm operation and contribution to the power grid.The goal of our work is the reactive power management of wind farm in most technical and economical way without compromising power quality, system voltage and to keep the voltage of a wind farm at the appropriate level by ensuring loss minimization in transferring power to the main grid. At the same time it is necessary to meet with connection requirement related to the grid code and reactive power exchange. Voltage instability and reactive power management can be resolved by using FACTS devices, which has its own merits and demerits. The shunt connected FACT devices such as Static Var Compensator (SVC), are dynamic reactive power compensators whose reactive power output depends upon the system voltage.