A Novel Doubly-fed Induction Wind Generator Control Scheme for Reactive Power

Control and Torque Pulsation Compensation Under Unbalanced Grid Voltage

Conditions
Ted Brekken, Ned Mohan
Dept. of Electrical Engineering,
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA

Abstract-Wind energy is often installed in rural, remote pulsations, which can result in acoustic noise at low levels
areas characterized by weak, unbalanced power and at high levels can actually destroy the rotor shaft,
transmission grids. In induction wind generators, gearbox, or blade assembly [3].
unbalanced three phase stator voltages cause a number of A special type of induction generator called a doubly-fed
problems, including overheating and stress on the induction generator (DFIG), shown in Fig. 1, is becoming the
mechanical components from torque pulsations. most popular choice for wind turbines. The ability to control
Therefore, beyond a certain amount of unbalance (for the rotor currents allows for variable speed operation, so that
example 6%), induction wind generators are switched out a DFIG can operate at maximum efficiency over a wide range
of the network. In doublyfed induction generators, of wind speeds.
control of rotor currents allows for adjustable speed
operation and reactive power control. In addition, it is
possible to control the rotor currents to correct for the
problems caused by unbalanced stator voltages. This stator
paper presents a novel controller design for a doublpfed
induction generator that provides adjustable speed and

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reactive power control while greatly reducing torque
pulsations.

I. GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

-
The goal of the research is to develop a control method
for doubly -fed induction wind generators that addresses
U U
issues associated with weak rural grids. The control method
presented improves the robustness and all around
dc-ac ac-dc
Fig. 1. Doubly-fed induction generator.
performance of doubly -fed induction wind generators.
A controller is designed and tested in simulation and a
The goal of the research is to develop a DFIG control method
hardware model will be built and tested. Research and
that exploits the rotor current control capabilities to allow for
simulation results are presented below.
adjustable speed, reactive power control and torque pulsation
compensation.
11. INDUCTION
GENERATORUNBALANCE
EFFECTS
111. STATORVOLTAGEORIENTED
CONTROL
Wind energy generation equipment is most often
installed in remote, rural areas. These remote areas usually
Fig. 2 [4] shows a steady state space vector diagram for a
have weak grids, often with voltage unbalances and
doubly -fed induction machine (current and power are defined
undedover-voltage conditions [ 1,2]. Under such abnormal
as positive going into the machine). In stator voltage oriented
conditions, wind turbines are disconnected from the grid for
control, the &axis is aligned with the stator voltage space
their own protection, thus significantly impacting their energy
vector. In steady state operation, the d-axis will rotate
production and the capacity credit that they are otherwise
synchronously with the stator space voltage vector.
due. As an example, the turbines in the southwestern part of
The rotor power converter controls the rotor current
Minnesota are removed from the grid beyond an unbalance of
6% in phase-phase voltages, an under-voltage of lo%, or an space vector, (. Due to transformer action, the stator will
over-voltage of5%. draw an equal and opposite current, c.
The total current
Induction generators are the predominant type of wind drawn by the stator is equal to the magnetizing component,
turbine. When the stator phase voltages, supplied by the grid,
are unbalanced, the torque produced by the induction
cs
,plus the rotor current complement , as shown in (1):
generator is not constant. Instead the torque has periodic

0-7803-7754-0/03/$17.00 02003 IEEE 760

 speed and torque control. Another view of this is that csand
I the magnetizing flux Bm will be aligned nearly entirely along
the negative *axis. Therefore the flux produced by ,i is
orthogonal to the magnetizing flux, thereby producing torque.
In this manner, stator voltage orientated control approximates
stator flux oriented control [5].
d
&
w.TORQUE PULSATION COMPENSATION
The torque equation for doubly-fed induction machine is
given by

P
T , =~-L, .
(is,ird- isdirq) (3)
Fig. 2. DFIG space vector diagram.
2

Using the dq equivalent circuits for an induction machine [4],

the dq magnetizing current can be defined as

Therefore, control of the rotor current allows for control of (4)

,,i = isd -k ird
the stator current.

i,, = is, + i, . (5)

The torque equation can now be expressed as

When the dq frame is synchronously rotating, the stator

voltages are balanced, and the generator is in steady state, all
dq quantities are dc. The torque equation can be written as

4-
is
Fig. 3. Relationship between machine power and stator current space vector. and ImsdIrqare constant,
Since ImsqIrd cmwill be constant.
Unbalanced stator excitations will cause perturbations in i,,,
Fig. 3 shows that when the d-axis is aligned with the stator
and imd at twice the synchronous frequency. The torque
voltage space vector, V $ , the stator current, <, can be
equation for unbalanced excitation can be written as
operated in any of the 4 quadrants and the generator can
produce or absorb real and reactive power. Normal operation
<
for a DFIG would be with in the left-half plane.
By breaking the rotor current up into its d and q
components, the stator current can be expressed as
In (8), T, is a function of the double frequency terms Tms, and
< =i;d + ji:, +t, = -i, - j i rq +Tm. (2) ksd. The compensation terms i,&ompand i,o are added to
the rotor currents to cancel the effects of r,, and im$d,thus
The magnetizing current, cis, is largely dependent only on making T, constant. The compensation terms are calculated
the stator voltage. Therefore i, and i, can be used to by equating the terms of the balanced torque equation, (7)
control real and reactive power, respectively. Real power with the unbalanced torque equation (8).
produced by the machine is directly related to torque, which
can be used to control speed. Therefore ird can be used for

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Figs. 4 and 5 show the controller structure block diagrams
with the torque pulsation compensation.

SlW
5 e 7 8 9 D
time (sec)
Fig. 6. Generator torque with 6% unbalance.

The tradeoff for the reduction in torque pulsation is an

Fig. 4. Torque loop.
I increase in stator current, as illustrated in Fig. 7. However, as
Fig. 7 shows, this increase in current occurs in the 2 phases
that did not see a drop in voltage. In fact, the current in the
phase in which the voltage has dropped (the A-phase in this
example) decreases once the compensation turns on. The
advantage of this is that if the voltage dip is caused by a fault
ti in that phase, the current sourced into the fault decreases.
The burden of torque compensation shifts to the phases that
do not have the voltage dip.
Fig. 5. Reactive power loop.

When designing the controllers, it is imperative that the 1om

loop bandwidths be much lower than the frequency of the CphaSe

disturbance (twice the line frequency). For the compensation

to work correctly, the output of the controllers should not be
affected by any loop disturbances near the line frequency.
om t
A significant advantage of this torque pulsation BphaSe -

compensation scheme is that the calculated compensation

currents are not dependent on machine parameter estimation.
The compensation currents are calculated only from other
measured currents and control variables.
A-phase -

V. TORQUEPULSATION RESULTS
SIMULATION
I
5 e 7 8 9 10
time (sec)
A doubly-fed induction generator model was constructed
in Simulink [8]. The simulation results shown below are for Fig. 7. Stator current (rms) with 6% unbalance.
a 750 kW generator, with a 6% voltage unbalance applied to
the stator terminals. Percent unbalance is defined here as the Fig. 8. shows that the rotor current is of the same form as the
percent decrease in the rated A-phase voltage. The generator stator current at a lower amplitude. It is not shown but
starts at 0 seconds without the torque pulsation compensation. should be noted that the phase angle relationships between
At 5 seconds, the line voltage is unbalanced when the A- the stator and phase currents does not change between the
phase voltage drops from 276 Volts rms to 260 Volts rms. At balanced, unbalanced without compensation, and
8 seconds the torque compensation is turned on. The torque compensated cases. Therefore only the magnitudes of the
is shown in Fig. 6. The torque pulsations are decreased by a rotor and stator phasors change during the simulation. The
factor of 10. phase angles remain approximately the same.

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 e80 -

- 880 -

8-
c

820 -
L
a
800 -

780-
uncompensated
8
reo 5 e 7 8 0

0 5 10 15 20
Percent line unbalance
Figs. 9 and 10 show the results of simulations over a
range of unbalance. Fig. 9 shows that the presented torque Fig. 10. Stator current vs. unbalance.
compensation method significantly reduces the torque
pulsations over the entire range unbalance situations W.HARDWARE
simulated. However, Fig. 10 shows that the compensation
causes in an increase in the Gphase stator current that
reaches two times the rated value at 20 percent unbalance.
Therefore with the presented compensation method, the
current limits of the machine may be reached before the
mechanical stress limits. A possible response to this situation
maybe to reduce the speed of the machine, thereby reducing
power and current. This is essentially derating the generator,
which leduces its capacity, but is better than removing the DSP-based Controller
generator entirely, as would be the case without any torque Fig. 1 1 . Lab setup.
compensation.
To test the presented control scheme, two lab setups are
under consideration. The first, as shown in Fig. 11, consists
of an induction machine coupled to a doubly-fed induction
generator. Both of the machines are connected to 3phase
inverters powered by a common dc link. The induction
machine will supply torque to simulate the wind, and can be
instantaneously controlled by its inverter. The three-phase
inverter powering the doubly -fed induction generator can
supply the necessary phase unbalances. The doubly-fed
induction generator will be 5 kW with 230 Volts at the stator
terminals. The disadvantage of this setup is that it may not be
reasonable to assume that a control scheme implemented on a
5 kW machine will scale up to a 750 kW machine. Dynamics
which may become significant at large sizes, such as shaft
dynamics, may not be accurately modeled by the 5 kW setup.
0 5 10 15 20 To address this issue, the second setup under
Percent line unbalance consideration is to program an FPGA or DSP with a detailed
model of a 750 kW machine, including as much physical and
Fig. 9. Torque pulsation vs. unbalance. electrical behavior as possible. This detailed model would
then be connected to another DSP running the control
algorithm. This would allow real-time testing of the
presented control scheme.

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 VII. SUMMARY WII. REFERENCES

A control scheme for adjustable speed and reactive [I] L.M. Craig, M. Davidson, N. Jenkins, A. Vaudin, “Integration of Wind
power control of a doubly fed induction generator is Turbines on Weak Rural Networks,” Opportunities and Advances m
International Power Generation, 1996, Conference PublicationNo. 419,
presented. The presented control scheme also includes an pp 164-167.
algorithm for greatly reducing the torque pulsations produced
by the generator when operating with unbalanced voltages [2] Allan E. A., “Large Wind Turbines and Weak Rural Electricity
applied to the stator. Simulation results are presented, as well Systems”, Proceedings of the BWEA Conference, Stirling, June 1994.
as a proposal for hardware testing.
[3] E. Muljadi, T. Batan, D. Yildirim, C.P. Butterfield,“LJ”tandingthe
Unbalanced-Voltage Problem in Wind Turbine Generation,” Itxiwhy
Applications Conference, 1999, vol. 2, pp 1359 -1365.

[41 N. Mohan, Electric Drives: An Integrative Approach,Minneapolis,

MNPERE. 2001.

[SI A. Petersson, “Analysis, Modeling, and Control of Doubly-Fed

Induction Generators for Wind Turbines,” Chalmers University of
Technology, Sweden.

[6] Mathworks Company Website: htttx//www.mathworks.com

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