A Study of Power Electronic Converters for Wind Energy Conversion System

The energy produced by wind and its benefits towards the surroundings have accounted wind energy to be a popular renewable energy source. To efficiently harness wind energy, power converters play a crucial role in converting variable wind power into stable electrical output suitable for grid integration or local use. This paper briefly summarizes the design considerations of various AC-DC-AC converter topologies for wind energy conversion systems (WECSs). This paper studies and compares various popular converter topologies intended for WECSs. A comparison table is included to summarize the merits and the demerits of the existing solutions for WECSs. The analysis demonstrates that the Modular Multilevel Converter (MMC) topology offers significant benefits over other existing converters, making it a promising option for enhancing WECS. A component level MMC topology based closed loop system is simulated to verify its performance.