Comparison between a crowbar and an R-SFCL to improve Fault Ride-Through Capacity of DFIG-based Wind Turbines

The Fault Ride-Through capacity is increasingly being demanded for wind turbines connected to the distribution networks. For DFIG-based turbines, achieving this requirement is even more difficult since this topology is vulnerable to voltage sags. The most popular solution employed for DFIG to ride through short-duration faults is crowbar protection, however other potential strategies have been presented in the literature. This paper aims to compare the performance between the crowbar and the resistive-type superconducting fault current limiter placed at the DFIG rotor side. For each scheme, different crowbar and R-SFCL resistances and activation currents were investigated to make the comparison fair. The results showed that the R-SFCL performed better in improving the FRT capacity of a distributed DFIG.