Impact of wind turbines on voltage quality

Operation of wind turbines has an impact on the voltage quality at the connected electric network. The issues of concern are the impact on the magnitude of the voltage, flicker and distortion of the voltage waveform Aiming at securing proper voltage quality and still enable a fair amount of wind power in the electric network, simplified assessment e.g. characterizing wind turbines only by their rated power, may not be appropriate. Rather, this paper introduces a set of parameters characterizing the relevant electric quantities of wind turbines, and applies these to predict the impact of wind turbines on voltage quality. The paper concludes by suggesting that the proposed set of parameters should be specified for wind turbines as part of their technical documentation, and that the assessment methods described in this paper should be applied prior to installing new wind turbines.