Simulation and Analysis of Surge Protection for Wind Turbines Based on ATP-EMTP

Abstract

Surge caused by lightning strike on the blades will impact the low voltage power system of the wind turbines. Traditional voltage-limiting surge protection device (SPD) fails to satisfy the environment of repetitive transients frequently caused by unstable pulse width modulation (PWM) of power supply and long cable effects. High peak value and steep rise time (du/dt) will greatly shorten the lifetime of voltage-limiting SPD as the maximum continuous operating voltage $(\mathrm{U}_{\mathrm{c}})$ is normally lower. Therefore, this paper presents a way for such SPD to realize fine protection and higher withstand capacity under repetitive transients, which are verified by simulation based on the ATP-EMTP.