Techno Commercial Proposal

Transient Study of Failure Analysis of WTG Converter Module

for FFCEL

Submitted by

PI: Dr. Hassan Abdullah Khalid

Assistant Professor
Electrical Power Engineering Department
U.S.-Pakistan Center for Advanced Studies in Energy (USPCAS-E)
National University of Science and Technology (NUST)
Technical Proposal

Background  FFCEL faced multiple power converter failures in early 2019; during these events main
converter modules were damaged due to voltage fluctuations at Grid side (132 KV).
 FFCEL carried out root cause analysis for these failures; however, certain
phenomenon & requirements needed further research.
 FFCEL approached USPCAS-E NUST in order to assist them in carrying out detailed
investigation for these failures & suggest appropriate mitigation measures to avert
these failures in future.
 Grid Fluctuations lead to considerable over-currents and over-voltages. These
transients could result in the destruction of the rotor side converter, stator side
converter, DC link bus and mechanical parts.
 To enable Wind Turbine (WT) to protect against voltage sags/voltage
variations/transients, special protection measures have to implement.

Objectives  A detailed study is proposed to create FFCEL’s Nordex S77 WTG model on PSCAD. The
model shall include DFIG & half converter characteristics installed on the WTG.
Additionally, grid conditions that led to the failure of converter modules would be
recreated. The study is aimed at evaluating the following.

 Investigate root cause of converter failure.

 Investigate the reason behind protection blinding/limitations of protection.

 Review the LVRT settings of power converter with requirements of grid code.

 Suggest a mitigation strategy to avoid future damage to WT converters by

proposing design changes/ retrofits to overcome any existing design
shortcomings.

Issues  The grid faults are a major source of over-currents and over-voltages that put the
whole wind farm components, especially power electronics under stress.

 Symmetrical/Asymmetrical sags along with other transients can cause damage to

major WTG components involved in power evacuation.

 These components are designed for 400 grid tripping throughout their design life of 20
years, however considering the grid conditions of Pakistan these components
experience grid tripping which are many times above their design characteristics.

 These grid failures discussed above are majorly responsible for the damage of afore
mentioned equipment as also reported by the FFCEL (INCIDENT INVESTIGATION
REPORT [Doc No: IR-01-19-FFCL]).
Methodology
Wind Turbine (WT) Model Modeling of WT
Goal 1 Development and
Verification Model Verification (data to be provided by FFCEL)

Protection Scheme (PS) implementation

Goal 2 WT Protection Scheme
PS Testing and Verification (data to be provided by
FFCEL)

Modeling of Grid condition and creation of scenarios

Goal 3 Problem Recreation (data to be provided by FFCEL)
Study of scenarios on the developed WT with PS model

Investigation to the identified and determine the Root

cause of failure
Goal 4 Investigation and Solution
Comparison and economic analysis of solutions

 The project team will comprise of a PI and a research assistant.

Team and
 Meetings are scheduled after every target goal to present the outcome with the
Reporting FFCEL representatives.

 Regular reports/updates of the project would be shared with FFCEL representative to

access the progress of the project. The frequency of these reports would be agreed
mutually.

 Final Report with all the findings of this study will be submitted at the end of this
project. The final report would be FFCEL intellectual property.

 The result of this study will be published with the consent of the FFCEL in a reputed
journal paper.

Proposed Plan  Transient study will be conducted in the PSCAD/EMTDC simulation software to achieve
the set objectives.

Task Name Expected Duration in Week

Start of Project: Hiring of Research Assistant + Preliminary literature 4
review
Goal 1: Wind Turbine (WT) Model Development and Verification 6
Meeting and Discussion
Goal 2: WT Protection Scheme 5
Meeting and Discussion
Goal 3: Problem Recreation 6
Meeting and Discussion
Goal 4: Investigation and Solution 8
Meeting and Discussion
Final Report submission 1

Project Closing
Documentation  Generator Specification.

Requirement  Converter Manual.

 Converter Status logs.

 Data on the total output power of wind turbines in a wind farm for 5 years.

 Protection scheme and coordination.

 Wintrust software to visualize the data logs.

 Damaged converter report with pics and analysis.

Software/Tools  Registered PSCAD software for the desired purpose

 Any other required software
Financial Proposal

 The total project cost will be 500,000 PKR.

 20% of the project consultancy cost will be given to ORIC NUST.

 The project cost will be divided into four installments given below:

Project Cost (PKR) ORIC (PKR) Total (PKR)

Start of Project 80,000 80,000
Completion of Goal 1 50,000 50,000
Completion of Goal 2 60,000 60,000
Completion of Goal 3 60,000 60,000
Completion of Goal 4 100,000 100,000
Project Closing 50,000 100,000 150,000