STATCOM to improve the voltage stability of an electric power system with high penetration of wind generation

In the last years, the high penetration of renewable energy sources, especially wind power generation poses new challenges for the dynamic voltage stability analysis of an electric power system. The wind power plants are required to be able to satisfy the voltage control strategy and reactive power demands. The wind power plants should provide the reactive power exchange with the grid, due to the present of high penetration level of wind power in the system. The exchange rate and level are specified by the transmission system operator. Wind farm model based on Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generator equipped with STATCOM was developed using the EUROSTAG software package. The automatic voltage regulators of the generating units and the turbine speed governors were modeled in detail. Different load models were used and the load tap changers were taken into account too. In order to assess the power network voltage stability several contingency were simulated. An increase of the wind speed was also took in account during the simulations. Finally, some conclusions that provide a better understanding of the dynamic voltage stability of a system using various capacities of STATCOM are pointed out.