Combining droop curve concepts with control systems for wind turbine active power control

Wind energy is becoming a larger portion of the global energy portfolio, and wind penetration has increased dramatically in certain regions of the world. This increasing wind penetration has driven the need for wind turbines to provide active power control (APC) services to the local utility grid, as wind turbines do not intrinsically provide frequency regulation services that are common with traditional generators. Large scale wind turbines are typically decoupled from the utility grid via power electronics, which allows the turbines to synthesize APC commands via control of the generator torque and blade pitch commands. Consequently, the APC services provided by a wind turbine can be more flexible than those provided by conventional generators. This paper focuses on the development and implementation of both static and dynamic droop curves to measure grid frequency and output delta power reference signals to a novel power set point tracking control system. The combined droop curve and power tracking controller is simulated and comparisons are made between simulations using various droop curve parameters and stochastic wind conditions. The tradeoffs involved with aggressive response to frequency events are analyzed. At the turbine level, simulations are performed to analyze induced structural loads. At the grid level, simulations test a wind plant's response to a dip in grid frequency.