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Reactive power capability of the wind turbine with Doubly Fed Induction
Generator

Conference Paper · November 2013

DOI: 10.1109/IECON.2013.6699999

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 Reactive Power Capability of the Wind Turbine with
Doubly Fed Induction Generator

J. Tian1, 2, Student member IEEE, C. Su1, Member, IEEE, and Z. Chen1, Senior member, IEEE
1
Dept. Energy Technology, Aalborg University, 9220, Aalborg, Denmark
jti@et.aau.dk, csu@et.aau.dk, zch@et.aau.dk
2
Sino-Danish Centre for Education and Research, 8000, Aarhus, Denmark

Abstract— With the increasing integration into power grids, With the increasing integration of wind power into power
wind power plants play an important role in the power system. grids, many requirements for wind power plants have been
Many requirements for the wind power plants have been proposed in the grid codes. According to these grid codes, four
proposed in the grid codes. According to these grid codes, wind most common requirements for the wind farms given by [3] are
power plants should have the ability to perform voltage control as follow:
and reactive power compensation at the point of common
coupling (PCC). Besides the shunt flexible alternating current  Active power and frequency control;
transmission system (FACTS) devices such as the static var
compensator (SVC) and the static synchronous compensator  Reactive power and voltage control;
(STATCOM), the wind turbine itself can also provide a certain  Fault ride through (FRT) capability;
amount of reactive power compensation, depending on the wind
speed and the active power control strategy. This paper analyzes  Frequency and voltage operation range.
the reactive power capability of Doubly Fed Induction Generator
(DFIG) based wind turbine, considering the rated stator current In order to fulfill these requirements, wind farm has to be
limit, the rated rotor current limit, the rated rotor voltage limit, able to provide a certain amount of reactive power to support
and the reactive power capability of the grid side convertor the voltage control at the PCC. The conventional reactive
(GSC). The boundaries of reactive power capability of DFIG power compensation devices like STATCOM and SVC will
based wind turbine are derived. The result was obtained using increase costs of the wind farm. On account of the variation of
the software MATLAB. the wind speed, DFIG doesn’t operate at its full load condition
all the time, so it can produce a certain amount of reactive
Keywords— DFIG, grid codes, reactive power curves, voltage power to the power grid. In order to fulfill the appeal of lowest
control, wind turbine possible cost and the highest possible efficiency for wind
power applications, the reactive power capability of DFIG
I. INTRODUCTION based wind turbine should be analyzed, so that advanced
As the world embraces for a sustainable energy future, reactive power control strategy could be developed.
renewable power generation integration into the power grid is The reactive power capability depends on the active power
increasing rapidly. Among these renewable energy control strategy implemented in the wind turbine. Under
technologies, wind energy is the most rapidly growing one, and normal operating condition, the wind turbine extracts wind
has been exploited and integrated in large scale. According to energy in five separate regions as mentioned in section III.
International Energy Agency, the global wind power capacity Under fault condition in the power grid, there are different
exceeds 238 GW, by the end of 2011. This is enough capacity control strategies. The most common used strategy is to use the
to cover about 3% of the world’s electricity demand [1]. crowbar system to short circuit the rotor circuit to limit the high
Nowadays, the DFIG and the permanent magnetic currents in the stator and the rotor to protect the generator and
synchronous generator (PMSG) are the most commonly used the converter and provide a bypass for rotor current via a set of
generators in wind farms. Compared with PMSG, DFIG resistors connected to the rotor windings [4]-[5]. Another
transfer electrical power to the grid both through the stator side control strategy is to control the active power and reactive
and the rotor side. Since only a small part of the energy is power directly to limit the stator current and rotor current at its
transferred through the rotor side, the required capability of the safe operational regions [6].
back-to-back converter which is installed in the rotor side of Much research efforts have been put into the reactive
DFIG is smaller than the full-scale converter used in a PMSG- power control and the voltage control at PCC in wind farms. In
based wind turbine. The stator of DFIG is connected to the grid [7] the authors proposed a novel interface neurocontroller
directly, so that DFIG can compensate reactive power to the (INC) for coordinated control of the reactive power provided
grid through its stator side [2]. by STATCOM and grid side convertor (GSC), without
considering the reactive power capability of DFIG. In [8] the

978-1-4799-0224-8/13/$31.00 ©2013 IEEE 5312

authors proposed a coordinative control of the rotor side 1
converter and the on-load tap changer to provide voltage P   πR 2C (  ,  ) v 3 (1)
t 2 p
control. In [9] the authors proposed that when there is a fault in
the power grid, by reducing the active power production the where R is the radius of the blades,  is the air density, v is
DFIG based wind turbine can provide much more reactive the wind velocity. The power conversion coefficient C p (  ,  )
power compensation to improve the system stability. In [10]
the authors proposed a kind of DFIG based wind turbine can be expressed by (2) as a function of the blade pitch angle
reactive power control strategy during the fault period in the  and the tip-speed ratio 
power grid, this analysis assume that the wind turbine is 1
operating at its rated power. Some authors have analyzed the 1  C7
C p   ,    C1 (C2  C3   C4  C5  C6 )(e i
) (2)
reactive power capability of DFIG based wind turbine. In [11] i
the authors investigated the influence of switching from Δ to Y
coupling of the stator. In [12] the authors proposed an where
additional series grid-side converter connected in series with
1 1 C9
the stator winding of DFIG to ancillary compensate reactive   (3)
power. A novel analysis method will be provided in this paper i   C8  1 
3

to obtain the reactive power capability of a single DFIG based

wind turbine as the foundation of advanced reactive power the tip-speed ratio  is defined as
control strategies. r R
 (4)
This paper will analyze the reactive power capability of a v
2.4 MW DFIG based wind turbine. The analysis is based on the
steady state model of DFIG, assuming that the DFIG is the constant coefficient C1 - C9 as shown in the appendix are
working at different wind speed operation point, and this given by [13].
analysis will be comply with an active power control strategy With constant blade pitch angle, the maximum value of the
implemented in the wind turbine system. The result of the
power coefficient C p _ max would be obtained at a particular
reactive power capability of a 2.4MW DFIG based wind
turbine will consider the rated stator current limit, the rated value of  , defined as opt . For maximum power point tracking
rotor current limit, the rated rotor voltage limit, and the reactive (MPPT),  should be maintained at this optimal value. The
power capability of GSC. The utilized wind turbine model and maximum output power of the wind turbines Pt _ max can be
steady state DFIG model are introduced in section II. A two
level PI control structure which is implemented in the wind expressed by
turbine control systems is introduced in section III. The result 1
of reactive power capability of DFIG based wind turbine is Pt _ max  ρπR 2 C p _ max v 3 (5)
presented in section IV. And conclusions are drawn in section 2
V. Fig.2 shows the relationship between C p and  , with constant
pitch angle   0 . It can be seen that C p _ max  0.44
II. WIND TURBINE AND DFIG MODEL
and opt  7.2 . All the other parameters of the wind turbine
The basic configuration of a wind turbine with DFIG is
shown in Fig.1. It is composed of blades, mechanical shaft which are shown in the appendix are given by [14].
system, gear-box, DFIG, crowbar, back-to-back converter, and 0.5
its control system. 0.4
0.3
0.2
Cp

0.1
0
-0.1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Lambda

Crowbar Fig.2. Power coefficient C p versus tip speed ratio 

RSC GSC
B. Steady State Model of DFIG
Controller The steady state model of DFIG which is shown in
Fig.3 is given by [15], where Z eq / s is the equivalent
Fig.1. DFIG based wind turbine model
impedance of the back-to-back converter.
A. Model of the Wind Turbine Aerodynamics Assuming that the stator operates at unity power
The mechanical power of the wind turbine can be factor，the air-gap power transferred to the stator side can be
calculated by calculated by

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 sTm III. DFIG CONTROL SYSTEM
Pag   3(Vs  I s Rs ) I s (6)
P The DFIG is fed from both the stator side and the rotor side.
The stator is directly connected to the grid while the rotor is fed
where s is the stator synchronous speed, I s is the stator through a back-to-back converter which consists of two four-
current, Vs is the stator voltage, Rs is the stator winding quadrant IGBT PWM converters including the rotor-side
converter (RSC) and the GSC.
resistance, P is the number of pole pairs, and Tm is the
mechanical torque which can be calculate by A. Rotor Side Converter (RSC) Control System
Pt The RSC control scheme consists of two cascaded control
Tm  (7) loops. Implementing the stator voltage oriented reference
r frame, the inner current control loops regulates independently
where r is the rotor speed. the d-axis and q-axis stator current components: ids and iqs ,
ids is used to control the active power, iqs is used to control the
Substituting (7) into (6), the stator current can be obtained
reactive power. The outer control loops regulates the rotor
by
speed and the reactive power in order to control the active
2 4 Rss Pt power and the reactive power independently. They are
Vs  Vs  implemented using PI control method. The output signal vds _ ref
3Pr
Is  (8) and vqs _ ref are sent to the PWM block to generate the control
2 Rs
signal of RSC. The control block diagram is shown in Fig.4.
With the calculated magnitude of the stator current, we can
r ids _ ref
use the equivalent circuit in Fig.3 to find the rotor current I r
r _ ref ids vds _ ref
and the rotor voltage Vr . The voltage across the magnetizing is iqs
Q s _ ref
branch can be calculated by Qs iqs _ ref vqs _ ref
Vm  Vs  I s ( Rs  js Lls ) (9)
Fig.4. The control block diagram of RSC
where Lls is the stator leakage inductance.
B. Grid Side Converter (GSC) Control System
The magnetizing current can be calculated by
The GSC control scheme also consists of two cascaded
Vm control loops. Implementing the stator voltage oriented
Im  (10) reference frame, the d-axis current idr is used to control the dc
js Lm
link voltage to control the rotor active power transferred to the
where Lm is the magnetizing inductance. power grid, and the q-axis current iqr is used to control the
The rotor current can be calculated by reactive power of GSC. The output voltage v dr _ ref and v qr _ ref
are sent to the PWM block to generate the control signal of
Ir  Is  Im (11) GSC. The control block diagram of GSC is shown in Fig.5.
The rotor voltage can be calculated by Depending on the rotor speed, when the generator is
working at its super-synchronous mode, the DFIG produce
Vr  sVm  I r ( Rr  jss Llr ) (12) active power from the rotor side, on the contrary, when the
generator is working at its sub-synchronous mode the DFIG
where Rr is the rotor winding resistance, Llr is the rotor absorb active power from the rotor side.
leakage inductance, the slip s can be calculated by(13)
v dc idr _ ref
s  r p vdc _ ref i idr vdr _ ref
s (13) r
s Q g _ ref iqr
Qg iqr _ ref vqr _ ref
Is Rs Rr / s I r RSC
jX ls jX lr 
  Im
Req / s  Fig.5. The control block diagram of GSC

Vm jX m Vr /s  Z eq / s
Vs  C. Control strategy of the wind power extraction
jX eq / s 
Pag For a 2.4 MW DFIG based wind turbine control system, the
  
power extraction as a function of the wind speed is divided into
different control regions as follow:
Fig.3. Steady state model of DFIG

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  When the wind speed is lower than 3.5m/s, the wind *
S s  Vs I s  Ps  jQs (18)
turbine is halted.
 When the wind speed is in the range of 3.5-5.5m/s, where Ps and Qs are the stator active power and the stator
keep the rotor speed at 900 rpm constant, the slip will reactive power.
be 0.4 as a constant, the electric power generated by
The rotor apparent power can be calculated by
the DFIG increases with the wind speed growing up.
*
 When the wind speed is in the range of 5.5-11m/s, Sr  Vr I r  Pr  jQr (19)
implement MPPT control strategy.
where Pr is the rotor active power, and Qr is the rotor reactive
 When the wind speed is in the range of 11-12.1m/s, power.
keep the rotor speed at 1800 rpm constant, the slip will
be -0.2 as a constant. The electrical power generated by The total active power of DFIG based wind turbine can be
the DFIG increases to its rated value with the wind calculated by
speed growing up.
Ptot  Ps  Pr (20)
 When the wind speed is higher than 12.1m/s,
implement pitch angle control strategy, keep the rotor The stator reactive power capability versus the total active
speed at 1800rpm constant and the DFIG works at its power with the rated stator current limit is shown in Fig.6 (a).
rated power. The reactive power capability of GSC can be calculated by

IV. REACTIVE POWER LIMITS QGSC   S GSC 2  Pr 2 (21)

Considering the rated stator current limit, the rated rotor
where SGSC is the capacity of the converter.
current limit, the rated rotor voltage limit, and the reactive
power capability of GSC, the reactive power capability The total reactive power capability combining the stator
boundaries of DFIG is derived, with the output active power reactive power capability and the GSC reactive power
controlled by the strategies introduced in section III. capability versus the total active power with the rated stator
current limit is shown in Fig.6 (b).
A. Rated Stator Current Limit
The stator voltage and stator current are given by 2.4 3

2 s=0.4 2.5 s=0.4
Vs  Vs 0 (14) 1.6 MPPT 2 MPPT

Q tot [p.u.]
1.2 s=-0.2 1.5 s=-0.2
Q s [p.u.]

I s  I s _ real  jI s _ imag (15) 0.8 1

0.4 0.5
where Vs is the amplitude of Vs , I s _ real is the stator active 0 0
power current component, I s _ imag is the stator reactive power -0.4 -0.5
-0.8 -1
current component.
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
To get the reactive power capability boundary limited by Ptot [p.u.] Ptot [p.u.]
the rated stator current, with the given wind speed v ,
(a) (b)
I s _ real can be calculated by (8), then the maximum I s _ imag can
Fig.6. Reactive power capability with rated stator current limit
be calculated by
B. Rated Rotor Current Limit
I s _ imag _ max   I s _ rate 2  I s _ real 2 (16)
Combining (9), (10) and (11), (22) can be derived.
where I s _ rate is the rated stator current.
Vs  I s ( Rs  js Lls )
Ir  Is  (22)
Then, the rotor current can be obtained by (11). Complying js Lm
with the active power control strategy intruduced in section III,
combine (4) and (13) , the slip s can be calculated by The amplitude of rotor current can be expressed by

s  NPv_ opt / R I r  I r _ real 2  I r _ imag 2 (23)

s (17)
s
where I r _ real is the rotor active power current component,
where N is the gearbox ratio. I r _ imag is the rotor reactive power current component.
The rotor voltage can be obtained by (12).
To get the reactive power capability limited by the rated
The stator apparent power can be calculated by rotor current, with the given wind speed v , I s _ real can be

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calculated by (8), and make I r as the rated rotor current, The stator reactive power capability versus the total active
combining (8), (15), (22), (23), I s _ imag can be calculated. Then power with the rated rotor voltage limit is shown in Fig.9 (a).
the total active power and the stator reactive power can be The total reactive power capability combining the stator
obtained by (20) and (18) separately. reactive power capability and the GSC reactive power
capability versus the total active power with the rated rotor
The stator reactive power capability versus the total active voltage limit is shown in Fig.9 (b).
power with the rated rotor current limit is shown in Fig.7 (a).
The total reactive power capability combining the stator
reactive power capability and the GSC reactive power
capability versus the total active power with the rated rotor
current limit is shown in Fig.7 (b).

2.1 s=0.4 2.8

1.8 2.4 s=0.4
1.5 MPPT 2 MPPT
1.2 s=-0.2 1.6
Q tot[p.u.]

0.9 s=-0.2
Qs [p.u.]

0.6 1.2
0.8
0.3 0.4
0 0
-0.3 -0.4
-0.6 -0.8
-0.9 -1.2
-1.2 -1.6
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Ptotal [p.u.] Ptot[p.u.] Fig.8. Rotor voltage versus total reactive power and slip

(a) (b)
Fig.7. Reactive power capability with Rated Rotor Current Limit 1.5 1.5
1 s=0.4 1 s=0.4

Qtot [p.u.]
0.5 0.5
Qs [p.u.]

C. Rated Rotor Voltage Limit MPPT MPPT

0 0
Combining (12), (17) and (22), (24) can be derived. -0.5 -0.5
-1 -1
Vr  s(Vs  I s ( Rs  js Lls )) -1.5 -1.5
0.2 0.5 0.8 1.1 0.2 0.5 0.8 1.1
V  I ( R  js Lls ) (24) Ptot [p.u.] Ptot [p.u.]
 (Is  s s s )( Rr  jss Llr )
js Lm (a) (b)
The amplitude of the rotor voltage can be expressed by Fig.9. Reactive power capability with the rated rotor voltage limit

Vr  Vr _ real 2  Vr _ imag 2 (25) D. Reactive Power Capbility of DFIG

Complying with the active power control strategy
where Vr _ real is the d-axis component of the rotor voltage, intruduced in section III, combining the rated stator current
Vr _ imag is the q-axis component of the rotor voltage. limit, the rated rotor current limit, the rated rotor voltage limit,
and the reactive power capability of GSC, the reactive power
The relationship between the amplitude of rotor voltage, the boundaries of DFIG can be derived and is shown in Fig.10. It
total reactive power and the slip is shown in Fig.8. Comparing can be seen that the reactive power production is limited by the
with the rated rotor voltage which is presented by the orange rated rotor current and the rated rotor voltage, the reactive
plain, it can be seen that the rated rotor voltage limits the power absorption is limited by the rated stator current.
maximum reactive power production only when the slip is
larger than 0.31 which is presented by the blue wireframe, and 1
0.8
Rated rotor voltage limit
there is no reactive power absorption limit by the rated rotor 0.6
Qtot [p.u.] and Slip

0.4 Rated rotor current limit

voltage. 0.2
0 Rated stator current limit
To get the reactive power capability limited by the rated -0.2 Slip
-0.4
rotor voltage, with the given wind speed v , I s _ real can be -0.6
-0.8
-1
calculated by (8). Make Vr as the rated rotor voltage, -1.2
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
combining (15), (24), (25), I s _ imag can be calculated. Then the Ptot [p.u.]

total active power and the stator reactive power can be obtained Fig.10. Reactive power capability of DFIG based wind turbine.
by (20) and (18) separately.

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 V. CONCLUSION VIII. REFERENCES
This paper analyzed the reactive power capability of a [1] IEA, 2011 IEA wind annual report (July 2012). [Online]. Available at
single DFIG based wind turbine. The analysis is based on the http://www.ieawind.org.
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under asymmetrical grid fault condition”, IEEE Trans. Industrial
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fed induction generator wind turbines using a parallel gridside rectifier
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voltage ride through (LVRT) capability or high voltage ride 2007, pp. 1442-1449, April 2007.
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[8] P. Cartwright, L. Holdsworth “Co-ordinated voltage control strategy for
VI. APPENDIX a doublyfed induction generator (DFIG)-based wind farm” IEE GTD,
vol. 151, no. 4, pp. 495-502, July 2004.
TABLE I. WIND TURBINE PARAMETERS [9] S. Foster, L. Xu, B. Fox, “Coordinated reactive power control for
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TABLE II. DFIG PARAMETERS
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Parameter value
144-151, Feb 2003.
Rated Stator Power 2MW [14] G. Abad, Doubly Fed Induction Machine. CA: Wiliey, 2011, PP. 75,
Rated Stator Phase Voltage 398.4 V (rms) 181.
Rated Stator Current 1760 A (rms) [15] B. Wu, Power Conversion and Control of Wind Energy Systems. CA:
Rated Rotor Current 1823 A (rms) Wiliey, 2011, PP. 241-242.
Rated Rotor Phase Voltage 488 V (rms)
Rated Stator Frequency 50 Hz
Rated Rotor Speed 1800 rpm
Nominal Rotor Speed Range 900-1800 rpm
Rated Slip, Turn Ratio -0.2, 2.94
Number of Pole Pairs 2
Stator Winding Resistance 2.6 mΩ
Rotor Winding Resistance 2.9 mΩ
Stator Leakage Inductance 87 μH
Rotor Leakage Inductance 87μH
Magnetizing Inductance 2.5 mH

VII. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of
Prof. Bin Wu and Prof. Gonzalo Abad to the electric power
industry.

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