Quantification of voltage fluctuations caused by a wave farm connected to weak, rural electricity networks

This paper describes a wave-to-wire model of an array of wave energy converters developed in MATLAB/Simulink. The effects of connecting a 1 MW wave farm to a weak, rural electricity network are investigated. Impacts of the wave farm on voltage quality are examined and both conventional and more intelligent control methods by which these impacts can be mitigated are discussed. The control methods compared are: constant voltage operation, constant power factor operation, On Load Tap Changing Transformer (OLTC) operation, automatic voltage and power factor controller (AVPFC) operation and fuzzy logic power factor controller operation. The applicability of these control methods are compared using certain indices - flicker severity index, voltage fluctuation index and global voltage regulation. Drawbacks of power factor control, voltage control and control using the OLTC transformer and the advantages of using more intelligent control methods, like the AVPFC or the fuzzy logic power factor controller, are established.