CHAPTER 1

GRID INTEGRATION OF DISTRIBUTED GENERATION

1.1 Distributed generation:

The demand for electric power is ever increasing making the gap between demand
and supply large. The changes in the demand for electric power are becoming
random, fluctuating and sometimes unpredictable. In the present day power system,
major portion of power demand is met with largely by conventional power stations
using fossil fuels such as coal, gas, nuclear etc. These conventional power plants are
often remotely located. Delivering power to the customers with quality and reliability
has become a tough task for the supply utilities. Another task for utilities is the
delivery of this invisible product at reasonable price to the customers who expect to
receive it at the exact same second they need it. Utilities are facing difficulties in
delivering quality and reliable power at reasonable and affordable cost. Siting of new
power plants using conventional fuels is becoming discouraging due to rising fuel
costs, fast rate of depletion of fossil fuel resources, environmental concerns, global
warming concerns, social and economic issues. These issues have urged the electric
power utilities and end users of electric power to look towards alternate and
renewable energy resources as a future energy solution. Electric power through
renewable energy sources is considered as “green energy” and is being witnessing an
exponential growth in the years to come.

1.2 Resurgence of Distributed Generation:

Over the past 8 decades, it has been a general practice for the electric power industry
that power is to be generated on large scale in centralized generating stations and
transmit the power to end users through transmission and distribution systems. The
generating stations are kept away from population centers for mostly environmental
reasons and to locate them closer to the source of fuel and water.

However, over the last 15 years there has been resurgence in interest of
Distributed Generation (DG) stimulated by the need to reduce gaseous emissions from
thermal generating plants, rising fuel costs etc. The market deregulation and
government’s incentives like tax credits etc have further accelerated the growth of

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renewable energy sector. Due to technology advancements, DG technologies are
gearing-up and are becoming alternatives to conventional energy sources to improve
system reliability. DG through renewable energy sources will become potential
sources of power in the coming years as it has been widely accepted by public,
political and investors. Hence, it is by no means certain that the power industry will
evolve into DG sources.

Power generation on small or large scale using smaller-sized generators,

normally less than 10MW through renewable energy sources that are distributed
throughout the power system closer to the loads is termed as Distributed Generation
(DG). Distributed generation is also sometimes referred to as Embedded Generation
(EG).

1.2.1 Perspectives on DG benefits:

There are certain tangible benefits of DG that are illustrated in the following three
different perspectives.

Utility perspective:
DG is received positively by the utilities as they can be placed at the distribution
levels which indirectly reduce the losses in transmission. DG also helps in
transmission and distribution capacity relief.

Power producer perspective:

Due to market liberalization and incentives by government more power producers are
being attracted to bid individually in the power markets and due to the fact most of the
DG generation units are too small. The DG may be directly interconnected into the
grid or simply serve the load off-grid. The latter is beneficial as it avoids many of the
problems associated with interconnection

End user perspective:

End users will have improved reliability of power and many also get power at
reasonable price.

1.2.2 Disadvantages of DG:

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The utility is concerned about the threat to distribution systems due to intermittent
nature of energy renewable energy sources in terms of stability, voltage regulation
and power quality issues.

However, it seems likely that the amount of DG interconnected with the utility
system will continue to increase in the coming years as detailed in the following
section.

1.3 Power through Renewable Energy sources:

Out of the renewable energy sources like wind, biomass, solar, geothermal etc used in
DG, wind is one of the most abundant non-conventional energy sources found in
nature and available free of cost with zero hazardous effects. Harnessing power from
wind through wind farms is given greater attention round the globe as it is one of the
most mature technologies among all the renewable sources [1] with almost zero
running cost. By the end of 2011, of the total renewable power capacity, 390 GW,
across the world, 61.1% of renewable is through wind energy [2], [3] using wind
turbines as they are environmental friendly, less installation and almost zero running
costs compared to other sources of energy. Wind energy is a major source of power in
over 70 countries across the world. Reports say that India has the world’s fifth largest
wind power market. Fig. 1.1 shows the increasing trend of installed capacity of global
renewable power, wind, biomass, solar photovoltaic (PV) and geothermal powers
from 2005 – 2011.

Fig. 1.1 Global Renewable Power Cumulative installed capacity

1.4 Grid integration of wind power to electrical distribution systems:

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From the Fig. 1.1, it can be noted that the wind power is the fastest growing
renewable power sources in the world. This is due to the increased demand for
energy, environmental concerns, rising cost of fossil fuels. Above all, the cost of
electricity through wind has fallen to about one seventh of its cost in the early 1980s
[4] due to technical advancements in the design and operation of wind turbines,
generators and their control units. All these factors make wind a competitive option.
Fig. 1.2 shows the cumulative installed capacity of wind power from 1996-2011 [3].

Fig. 1.2 Global Cumulative installed capacity of wind power

Most renewable energy sources are intermittent in nature. It is a challenging

task to integrate the renewable energy sources to the power grid. Power grid was
traditionally designed to transmit and distribute electricity generated by large
conventional power plants due to technical and economic reasons. The power flow
mainly takes place in one direction from centralized plants to load centers. Since the
renewable energy plants, normally of smaller capacity, are installed in distributed
manner at different locations and are intermittent in nature, their integration to grid is
really a tough job for the power engineers.

1.5 Issues of wind power integration:

Integration of wind power is a challenging task as wind power differs significantly
with conventional synchronous central generation mainly because:

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  Wind turbines employ different generating systems
compared with those used in conventional power plants.
 The prime mover of wind turbines, the wind, is not
controllable and fluctuates stochastically.
 The typical size of individual wind turbines is much smaller
than that of a conventional utility synchronous generator.

Due to these differences, wind generation interacts differently with the power
network and wind generation may have both local and system-wide impacts on the
operation of power system. The local impacts include variation in bus bar voltages,
fault currents, harmonic voltage distortion and voltage flicker. The system-wide
impacts include power system dynamics and stability, reactive power and voltage
supports and frequency support. In view of local and system-wide impacts, grid codes
are imposed by Transmission System Operators (TSO) for safe, secure and reliable
operation of power system to which the wind farms are integrated. These grid codes
vary from nation to nation and are constantly updated to meet the local grid
conditions.

With the increase in wind power penetration into the grid, the power quality
becomes a paramount issue for power engineers. Flicker is an important power quality
metric for the operation of electrical equipment and may become a serious limitation
to wind power especially in case of weak grids. Many factors contribute for flicker
emission of grid connected wind turbines during continuous operation such as wind
characteristics and grid conditions [5], [6]. The wind power fluctuations produced by
grid connected variable/fixed speed wind turbines during continuous operation are
mainly caused by fluctuations in aerodynamic torque due to wind speed variations,
the wind shear (WS) and the tower shadow (TS) effects [1], [5] and [7]. The wind
shear and tower shadow effects are referred to as 3p oscillations. These 3p oscillations
result in output power to drop three times per revolution for a three bladed wind
turbine [8]. This frequency is normally referred to as 3p. The 3p oscillation frequency
component is transmitted to the output active power of the wind turbine, which will
induce voltage fluctuation and flicker in the grid [8]. There are other factors that
affect flicker emission of grid-connected wind turbines during continuous operation

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such as wind characteristics (e.g., mean wind speed, turbulence intensity), grid
conditions (e.g., short circuit capacity, grid impedance angle) and types of wind
turbines (e.g., fixed speed and variable speed).

The flicker level is found more [9], [10], [11]


at higher wind speeds due to higher turbulence in the wind

with lower short circuit level at the Point of Common Coupling (PCC) of the
wind turbine

if the difference between grid impedance angle and the wind turbine power
factor angle approaches zero from 900

in fixed speed wind turbines compared to variable speed wind turbines. For
fixed speed wind turbines, flicker level increases around three times from
lower to higher wind speeds [5]
Thus, the flicker in voltage due to 3p oscillations is the first integration barrier.

1.6 Issues with electrical distribution systems:

The present day distribution systems are highly polluted due to extensive use of
power electronic devices. The loads are becoming non-linear due to these devices
such as adjustable speed drives, rectifier equipment, power supplies, domestic
appliances etc. These non-linear loads apart from injecting harmonic current into the
system also cause poor power factor, capacitor failures, overheating of transformers
and induction machines, excessive neutral currents and interfere with neighboring
communication networks. The non-linear loads draw non-sinusoidal currents and
create adverse effects in operation of various components in distribution system such
as induction motors, power electronic converters and drives [12]. The current
harmonics result in distortion in supply voltage. The users of power electronic devices
based equipment are both causes and victims of this phenomenon. The amount of
pollution they introduce is dependent on their rated power and above all on their
coupling point on the grid. Table 1.1 compares three power semiconductor switches
viz., Gate Turn-OFF (GTO), Gate commutated thyristor (GCT) and Insulated Gate Bi-
polar transistor (IGBT) on various parameters. When a WF is integrated to such a
polluted distribution system, the harmonics resulting from it will over heat and

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deteriorate the life of induction generators. Thus, harmonics are second integration
barriers.
Table 1.1 Comparison of power electronic devices
Parameter GTO GCT IGBT
Maximum voltage and current
High High Low
ratings
Switching speed Slow Moderate Fast
Turn-on (di / dt ) snubber Required Required Not Required
Turn-off (dv / dt ) snubber Required Not Required Not Required
Active overvoltage clamping No No Yes
Active di / dt & dv / dt control No No Yes
Active short-circuit protection No No Yes
Switching loss High Medium Low
Gate driver Complex, Complex, Simple,
Separate integrated Compact
Gate driver power consumption High Medium Low

The third integration barrier is the reactive power drawn by the generators in the
wind farm (WF). This is also a serious issue to be tackled when the wind farm is
integrated to weak grid i.e., grids with low short circuit ratio.

1.7 Literature survey:

In accordance with the problem stated above, a survey has been conducted and the
author has collected the following literature related to the issues of integrating wind
farms to the present day electrical distribution systems.

With the tremendous progress in technology and rating of wind farms for
electrical power generation to meet the ever increasing power demands, certain issues
are becoming paramount for the utilities to maintain safe and reliable operation of
electrical distribution systems when these wind farms are integrated to distribution
systems. The first issue being the 3p oscillations originating from the wind farm
appearing as flicker in voltage. This deteriorates the quality of power in electrical
distribution systems. The root cause of 3p oscillations are wind shear and tower
shadow effects. To study the affects of wind shear and tower shadow and to
counteract them, a mathematical model is necessary. Few authors presented
mathematical models for wind shear and tower shadow effects.

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 Prantdl logarithmic law [14] has been under use for the analysis of wind shear
effect which is a measure of variation of wind speed with respect to the tower height.
Later Exponential law [15] has been proposed for the study of wind shear. In many
reports it has been mentioned that the mathematical model of wind shear given by
exponential law is close to reality over Prantdl logarithmic law. In view of this the
exponential law has been considered in this work.

Bianchi F.D et.al [14] first proposed the model for tower shadow which
describes the redirection of wind due to the tower structure. This is a rough estimation
which describes the variation of wind speed by the blade element in terms of axial and
lateral components. There are other models proposed by various authors to describe
the tower shadow effect. A comparison of models for tower shadow effect proposed
by Sorensen P et al. [16] and Garcia O [17] is made in [7] and reported that the model
proposed by Sorensen is preferable.

The voltage flicker due to grid connected wind turbines may be neutralized by
the application of auxiliary devices such as reactive power compensation equipment
and energy storage equipment.

The Static VAR compensator (SVC), was used to reduce voltage fluctuation
and flicker produced by wind turbine-generators. Y. Kubota et al. [13] proposed SVC
for flicker mitigation. Z. Zhang et al. [18] proposed a shunt connected device for
mitigation of voltage flicker due to electric arc furnace. Static compensator
(STATCOM) is found superior to SVC. T. Larrson [19] proved STATCOM as an
effective means for flicker mitigation. Z. Saad-soud et.al. [20] and J. E. Hill [21] also
proposed STATCOM for wind farm applications.