Instability in induction generator based wind farms connected to series compensated transmission lines

Abstract

This paper presents a study of subsynchronous mode instability in Induction Generator (IG) based wind farm connected to a series compensated transmission line. The IEEE First SSR benchmark system is modified by replacing the synchronous generator with an aggregated wind farm. A small signal stability analysis is carried out to detect the instability analytically and then results are validated through a detailed electromagnetic transient simulation using PSCAD/EMTDC. Two types of studies are performed for the small signal analysis. First, a linearized state space model is developed for the eigenvalue calculation. Then, a simple equivalent circuit model is developed for the resonant speed analysis. From the equivalent circuit model, two resonant speeds - upper resonant speed (URS) and lower resonant speed (LRS), are obtained. If the post fault speed of the aggregated generator comes close or enters in the band within these two resonant speeds, the induction generator may become unstable. The performance of the aggregated wind farm model is validated with a distributed wind farm model. It is shown that the wind generator may experience SSR if the fault occurs at the terminals of the wind farm even at a realistic level of series compensation.