Custom Power Systems and Software Platforms for

Wind Farms under Voltage Dips Situations

C. lvarez

H. Amars

O. Samuelsson

D. Flrez

L. Gonzlez

Carlos III University

Carlos III University

Lund University

Carlos III University

Carlos III University

caortega@ing.uc3m.es

hamaris@ing.uc3m.es

olof.samuelsson@iea.lth.se

dflorez@ing.uc3m.es

lgjuarez@ing.uc3m.es

Abstract- Wind generation is one of the most important

renewable energy technologies. The most common type of wind
turbine is the fixed-speed directly connected to the grid. Faults
in the power system can originate the disconnection of wind
farms. Grid codes appear. Custom power systems, such as DSTATCOM and DVR, are needed for helping old wind farms to
withstand the sag. DFIG with the appropriate converter control
can comply with grid codes. For simulating and testing the
behavior of DFIG, an adequately software platform is needed.
Here, the comparison between Matlab SimPowerSystems Vs
Matlab-PSIM co-simulation for solving the problem is studied.
The PSIM-MATLAB co-simulation is found to be advantageous
for analyzing, e.g., DFIG converters in dynamic simulations.

I.

INTRODUCTION

Wind generation is one of the most important renewable

energy technologies. The most common type of wind turbine
is the fixed-speed induction generator connected directly to
the grid. A drawback of wind turbines is their operation
during grid faults. Faults in the power system originate a
voltage dip at the connection point of the wind turbine. The
dip results in an increase of the current in the stator windings.
The wind turbine protection system disconnects the wind
turbine because of that current increase.

turbines is getting so high that it is not possible to disconnect

an entire Wind Farm without affecting the system stability.
Electrical utilities and System Operators (REE, EON, etc.)
have specified in their recent requirements that wind turbines
have to offer ride-through capability under severe voltage
dips [1],[2]. Instead of disconnecting from the grid under
fault conditions, wind turbines should be able to follow the
characteristic described in the grid codes and shown in Fig. 1.
and Fig. 2. Only when the grid voltage goes below the curve,
the turbine is allowed to disconnect. In any other case the
turbine should remain connected to the grid without
consuming active or reactive power during the disturbance.
If wind farms are unable to withstand voltage drops for a
limited time, they will be disconnected from the system and
that may cause a cascading voltage fall and the break-down of
part or all the power system.

In countries with high wind energy percentage, such as

Germany or Spain, grid codes appear for setting rules to
avoid the disconnection problem. Then, custom power
devices are needed for helping wind turbine to be able to
withstand the sag.
DFIG with an appropriate back to back converter control
can comply with grid codes. For testing the low-voltage ride
through capability of variable speed wind turbine generators
the converter controls have to be adequately simulated. In this
paper, the comparison between Matlab SimPowerSystems Vs
Matlab-PSIM co-simulation for solving those models is
studied. After this study, it can be deduced that PSIM
improves MATLAB simulations and PSIM-MATLAB cosimulation is found to be advantageous for analyzing e.g.
DFIG converters in dynamic simulations.
II.

Fig. 1. Proposed voltage-time curve by REE.[1]

CONNECTION OF WIND FARMS. GRID CODES.

Traditionally, wind turbines were disconnected from the

grid when an abnormal grid voltage occurred at the Wind
Farm terminals. In some areas, the concentration of wind

Fig. 2. Proposed voltage-time curve by EON. [2]

Comparing both of the figures, it can be seen that REE grid

code is more restrictive in terms of time than EON grid code,
more restrictive in terms of voltage drop. Wind turbines
should withstand longer voltage sags (500ms @20%U/UN)
while EON grid code is more restrictive in terms of voltage.
Wind turbines, in EON grids, should withstand deeper
voltage sags, but shorter (150ms @0%U/UN).
III.

D-STATCOM, DVR AND DFIG. POWER ELECTRONIC

SOLUTIONS

In the Spanish case, new wind farms have to comply with

the grid codes requirements for getting an economic
complement. That complement will be equivalent to the 5%
of the average energy price defined in the 2nd article of the
Spanish law R.D. 1432/2002. Old wind farms have until 2009
for adapting themselves in order to cope with these grid code
rules and to get the economic complement [1]. For that
reason, custom power systems are being used helping old
wind farms to cope TSO grid codes. As an example, the
typical investment costs for a STATCOM are around
70/kVAr for a 100 MVAr device. For a 400MVAr one, the
costs decrease to 50/kVAr [3]. Among the custom power
solutions, the most important systems are the DistributionSTATic synchronous COMpensator (D-STATCOM) and the
Dynamic Voltage Restorer (DVR).
The D-STATCOM Fig. 3. and the DVR Fig. 4. are
complementary devices which provide simultaneous voltage
control and power quality functions. Either device can be
connected at any distribution voltage level to protect whole or
large portions of a plant with a single solution. They share the
same basic hardware and use modular power electronics.
They are available in sizes from 2 MVA to 10 MVA in 2
MVA increments. [4]

Fig. 3. Shunt compensation (D-STATCOM)

Fig. 4. Series compensation (DVR).

A. D-STATCOM
Conventionally, the low cost mechanical switched cap
banks and transformer tap changers are used to address issues
related to stability and power quality. However, although
these devices help improve the power factor of wind farms
and steady-state voltage regulation, the power quality issues
cannot be solved satisfactorily by them because these devices
are not fast enough [5].
The D-STATCOM is considered for this application,
because it provides fast response time (1~2 cycles) and
superior voltage support capability with its nature of voltage
source [6]. Depending on the control strategy, the DSTATCOM device can be used for flicker or harmonic
mitigation or even for voltage dip mitigation.
The application of D-STATCOM devices for voltage dip
mitigation in the event of very severe fault conditions has not
been very used comparing with DVR, mainly because of the
necessity of rating the VSI for large current.
B. DVR
The DVR is a device used mainly for voltage dip
mitigation and for restoring the distorted voltage signal
connected in series with the Wind Farm at the PCC. It injects
a voltage signal which is added to the grid side voltage in
order to provide the downstream side of the bus with
sinusoidal voltage.
The voltage magnitude is restored to the nominal value.
Generally, the DVR is rated according to the amount of
compensation being injected.
C. DFIG
The DFIG is a standard wound rotor induction machine
with its stator windings directly connected to the grid and its
rotor windings connected to the grid through a frequency
converter, Fig. 5.
Recently, new technologies are proving that with a proper
control over the DFIG converters, DFIG could be a
standalone solution to ride-through voltage sag. New wind
farms, able to withstand voltage sags, are based on DFIG. For
developing this new technology, an appropriate software
platform is needed.

Fig. 5. DFIG wind turbine scheme.

IV.

SOFTWARE UNDER STUDY

Matlab

The control simulations are fundamental in any dynamic

simulation in wind farm applications. However, this dynamic
simulation has to consider very short time constants in the
converter controls consequently these would require an
excessively short integration time step that will make the time
required to run simulations unacceptably long. The main
objective is to reduce as much as possible the computational
time taking advantage of the PSIM software capabilities
maintaining the control features provided by MATLAB.

SIMULINK
Control +
+SimCoupler
(Psim link)
>> plot (ASCII output
file)

PSIM
Power
electronic
model

SIMVIEW

OUTPUT FILE

Fig. 6. Matlab/SIMULINK PSIM interaction.

A. Matlab, SIMULINK, SimPowerSystems.

Matlab SIMULINK is a well-known software tool used in
many scientific fields. The Matlab control toolbox is flexible
and powerful but it has a great amount of other toolboxes.
Within those, electric models can be found. The electric
library is called Matlab SimPowerSystems. Wind farms with
their power electronic converters have been modeled with
detailed component models for different applications. These
models have been continuously improved in each update in
order to fulfill the emergent requirements. However, for
simulating the DFIG converter, the integration time step must
be very short and this requires a big RAM memory space and
a long time to run the dynamic simulation.

D. Model under study

In this paper, only the DFIG back to back converter has
been simulated in order to compare the different software
platforms. It can be seen in Fig. 7.

B. PSIM
PSIM is a software tool widely applied in power
electronics simulations. In its library, many electric models
can be found, e.g. branches, machines, all kind of switches,
power transformers, loads, etc. PSIM has been used in many
areas, from wind energy to automobile industry. It has been
applied wherever power electronics are. It is powerful in
power electronics simulations and it does not use much RAM
memory space.

V. SOFTWARE PLATFORM COMPARISON

This software platform is especially useful for power

converter design. It can provide, using special modules, some
important information, e.g. power losses on semiconductors.
That is not offered in other software tools. Inside the losses
module, all semiconductor data is introduced. Based on this
data, DC bus voltage, gate voltage, gate resistance, all
junction temperatures, etc., the module provides all the losses
on the semiconductors.

The main elements are:

Power source (representing the power system)

Power electronic bridges
Dc-link
Rotor
Dc-link voltage control.

DFIG back to back converter behavior is simulated both in

PSIM, Matlab SimPowerSystems and PSIM/SIMULINK cosimulation under normal conditions and conditions specified
by the REE grid code. Waveforms, computational time,
memory needs and time step issues are compared.
A. Back to back converter data.
-Power source voltage=370 V; (Line voltage, max)
-Frequency=50Hz;
-Grid side converter inductance=500H;
-Power source resistance=0.1;
-DC-link capacitor=1.65mF;
-DC-link voltage=500V;
-Rotor side converter inductance=550 H;
-Rotor side resistance=10 ;
-Rotor side max output voltage=400V;

PSIM is suitable for power electronics circuit simulation,

but it is not very convenient to build up a control circuit [7],
moreover when running dynamic simulation in DFIG wind
turbines, where control is crucial.
C. Interaction
Working with Matlab/SIMULINK for control design and
PSIM for power converter simulation in the same model is
possible and recommended because PSIM accelerates Matlab
SimPowerSystems simulations. The time for setting up the
model is reduced and the merits of different software are
used. The scheme of the interaction can be seen in Fig. 6.

Fig. 7. DFIG back to back converter main scheme.

B. Simulations
PSIM provides the optimal time step for simulating the
system compromising accuracy and simulation velocity. The
PSIM optimal time step was 10s. All the simulations were
done with the same time step.
Simulation under normal conditions:
The starting of the back to back converter is simulated
during 0.3 seconds, enough to reach the steady state
conditions, but only the most significant 25ms are shown.
The first 25ms of the simulation can be seen in Fig. 1.
where Matlab has been only used and in Fig. 2. with cosimulation. The results, as the figures show, are similar.
The computational time and memory needs are, in these
simulations, very similar. The simulation takes a few seconds
in all cases. The difference in this field will be clearer in the
next simulation.
Longer simulation for comparing the different platforms:
Another simulation is done for comparing the different
platforms. Now, the voltage-time curve is the specified in [1],
the voltage dip is a three phase fault at t=1s and it lasts 0.5s
and the voltage depth is 80%. The simulation time was 17s. A
summary of properties is shown in Table I.

TABLE I
SIMULATION TIME, MEMORY AND CONTROL CAPABILITIES COMPARATIVE.
ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE TERMS.

Software
PSIM
MATLAB
BOTH

Time
14min
1h 25min
26min

Memory
7996KB
938108KB
290424KB

Control
Regular
Optimal
Optimal

Software
PSIM
MATLAB
BOTH

Time
100%
607%
185%

Memory
100%
11732%
3632%

Control
Regular
Optimal
Optimal

VI. CONCLUSION
The following conclusions have been reached:
This paper has presented custom power devices that
can be connected at the PCC of the wind farm.
For voltage dip mitigations in wind turbine
applications the most suitable custom power
device is the DVR.
For increasing the transient stability margin in the
event of a voltage dip, for regulating the voltage at
the PCC or the total plant power factor, or for
mitigating voltage flicker, D-STATCOM is the
most suitable custom power device.
Using PSIM linked with Matlab/SIMULINK for
simulating power electronic devices, the
computational time is substantially reduced,
especially in DFIG under grid code conditions
simulations where the time simulation is long.
Memory problems decrease using PSIM-Matlab.
Results are stored in text files freeing the RAM
memory.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Authors acknowledge the financial support of the Spanish
Science and Education Ministry under contract ENE200509375-03-03.

Fig. 1. DC-link & AC Voltage from MATLAB simulation.

Fig. 2. DC-link & AC Voltage from PSIM-MATLAB co-simulation.

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