A Low-Pass Virtual Filter for Output Power Smoothing of Wind Energy Conversion Systems

As theincrease of wind power penetration, the fluctuations of wind power results in serious power system frequency turbulences. This article proposes a low-pass virtual filter (VF) for wind energy conversion systems (WECSs) to smoothen output power. First, a linearized model is established for a WECS. Then, a low-pass VF is derived for the active power control loop in WECS to modulate the kinetic energy stored in rotating mass for output smoothing. The principle is to modify the traditional wind power controller to emulate a physical energy storage system controlled as a low-pass filter to smooth the wind power output. The proposed low-pass VF does not need the physical deployment of energy storage system but still can filter the high-frequency fluctuations in the output wind power. Furthermore, in order to ensure operation stability of the wind turbine (WT), a stability-constrained coefficient is determined according to the proposed stability criteria to ensure the stability of WTs. Simulation and experiment results verify the effectiveness of the proposed VF in WECS for output wind power fluctuation reduction and the stability-constrained coefficient for stability ensuring.