Analysis of the Impact of Interconnecting Wind Turbine Generators to the Utility Grid

A preliminary analysis on the impact of wind power penetration into the grid is presented. This develops consistent simulation tools to analyze the steady-state impact of the interconnection of wind turbine generators to the utility grid for (i) power flow analysis, and (ii) reactive power compensation. Simulation results show that parallel compensation improves the effective power-factor of the wind farm, whereas series compensation improves the power developed by the induction machines. The advantages of both series and parallel compensation with AC capacitors are utilized by 'series-parallel' compensation. Simulation studies done on a 9-bus radial system, using the C⁺⁺ programming language, show that this combination produces a very satisfactory voltage profile at the point of common coupling.