2012 IEEE 7th International Power Electronics and Motion Control Conference - ECCE Asia

June 2-5, 2012, Harbin, China

A LVRT Control Strategy Based on DC-link Voltage

Limit for PMSG Wind Generation System

Keqing Qu, Jinbin Zhao, Yuehong Xing

Department of Power Engineering
Shanghai University of Electric Power
Shanghai, China
kqqu@shiep.edu.cn

Abstract-A Low-voltage ride-through (LVRT) control strategy The LVRT requirements and standards are discussed in the
is presented with full-power converter for direct-drive first part, and the power converter control scheme is introduced.
permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) wind-power Then the LVRT control scheme and the space vector pulse
system. According to the LVRT requirements, control strategy is width modulation (SVPWM) control scheme for the converter
realized by limit the rise of DC-link voltage on basis of power are presented based on the energy balance principle in
balance between wind power side and grid side. Simulation
condition of voltage dip. Simulation results show the value of
results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method that the
our study on the direct-drive wind power generator both
LVRT is achieved, power balanced and response quickly traced.
theoretically and practically effective.
Keywords- LVRT; PMSG; wind power; fUll-power converter
II, THE CHARACTERISTICS OF LVRT
I, INTRODUCTION

With the increasing scale of wind power system, the

100%
proportion of wind power to the power grid is in growth, To
90%
ensure the overall stability, the power utilities require wind
power system to keep connected during the transient fault time,
i.e. be capable of the LVRT[I], thus to provide transitional
support to the grid.
Variable speed constant frequency control modes are most
15%
commonly used with the wind power systems in order to
maximize energy harvested at various wind speed. The wind o ISO 700 1500 3000
tlms
power generators connected to the main power grid are L- Time fault oeeured
generally of two types: double fed asynchronous and motor
direct-drive permanent magnet synchronous, while the former (a) Voltage-limit Curve
ones are commonly seen in the wind power system of large
scales, for it greatly improves efficiency of wind power
generation as its stator armature windings directly connected to Dead Time Area

power network. However, when a fault condition happened 100% <?4---------

with the network side, for instance three-phase grounding, '. "'1
which would cause instantaneous voltage drop and unavoidable ..·.···.1'j
..
current shock, although LVRT would be taken as a prevention
50% "'1 k=(IQ/IN)/(U/UN)�2. 0 p. u.

::.....�
••
measure, it will still affect the unit operation as well as lag the ·.
.•
•1

required network recovery.

Time Limt <20ms

In recent years, applications of full power converter to

direct-driven PMSG system have been refined gradually. <:?I
� .
Compared with the double-fed ones, the main advantages of 10% 20% :10% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% U /U
N
direct-driven PMSG system reflect cost saving and efficiency
improving for its removal of the large gear box, harvest in (b) Reactive current compensation curve in presence of voltage-dip
wider range of wind speed, and full isolation of the generator Figure. I The LVRT requirement by E.ON
from the power grid so to avoid impacts of current shock or
harmonic wave from the grid side. Therefore, the permanent System operators require wind power system to remain
magnet synchronous generator system has more superiority in connected to grid in presence of grid-voltage drops, moreover
LVRT, which has been discussed with many literatures. [2-4] to feed-back supportive reactive power to the grid according to
the voltage sag amplitude. Among all the proposals of LVRT

Supported by Project of Shanghai Science and Technology Committee

(project number: 11510500800)

1169 978-1-4577-2088-8/11/$26.00 mOl21EEE

standard [51, the most representative one is by German company
E.ON, as shown in Fig.l. uR =
MUdc
J6 •
sm
(OJ/ + () )
g (I)

Fig.l(a) shows that the wind power system can been Here UR refers to the fundamental wave component of the
divided into three work areas according to the voltage sag
amplitude. Compare with Fig.l(b), in the LVRT region, there R phase voltage generated from the rectifier with PWM
are two necessary conditions for wind power system: (1) If modulation; Ude is the converter DC-link voltage; M is the
g
voltage-dip is above the limit curve, in order to keep connected modulation depth; OJ is the current angular frequency of
I(
to the grid, the wind power system need to provide reactive
generator; and ()g is the initial phase angle.
power for compensation to lift the grid-voltage. (2) The
compensation size of the reactive power is determined by two
times of the nominal current, which is subject to the nominal We can draw from equation (1) that uR can be modulated
voltage-dip. For example, if the voltage drops greater than 50%, by adjusting M and (}o. In addition, the control subject is
all the current to the power grid must be 100% reactive, which
is required to be realized within a cycle of 20ms. exactly same to the 3/2 coordinate transformation of vector
control mode.
Therefore, active and reactive control of the wind power
generation refers to the reactive current compensation curve 2) At the grid side, the current to grid is regulated and kept
when voltage drops that is shown in Fig.l (b). Thus transitional synchronous anti-phase to the grid voltage by rectifying the AC
support can be realized by reasonable distribution of active or side voltage Uu of PWM converter, thus to inject active power
reactive power to the grid subjected to the measured voltage­
to the main network.
dip. However, as the complication fault conditions, for instance,
symmetric or asymmetric that differ in consideration of
positive-, negative-, and zero-sequence voltage components, so (2)
there will be considerable inconvenience for voltage detection
and compensation. Here we discuss the control plan only in
case of symmetrical fault conditions. Here Uu refers to the fundamental wave component of the
U phase voltage generated from the rectifier with PWM
III. THE CONTROL STRATEGY OF LVRT modulation; Udc is the converter DC-link voltage; M, is the
Fig.2 shows the Diagram of PMSG wind system with full modulation depth; OJl is the current angular frequency of
power VSC. generator; (}l is the initial phase angle.

3) At the DC-link, connection to grid demands Uel, to

remain constant, i.e. to meet the following balance equation:

(3)

Ignoring the circuit loss, here in equation (3) I'1Pc; is the

generator's output increment; �. is the power increment
PWM Rectifier P\VM Inverter
injected to power grid; I'>.Q, is the output reactive power
Figure.2 Diagram of PMSG wind system with full power VSC increment of the capacitor.

A. Control Requirements When Connected to Steady State B. Control Requirements ofLVRT

Grid
When connected to the grid operating in steady state, a
single wind power generator only share a small segment of
active power to grid. Therefore, there will be little difference
when it stops, and the specific control mode can be stated as
follows:
l) At the generator side, it can be realized that the wind
turbine works at speeds that lead to the maximum power point
tracking (MPPT) control by controlling the AC side voltage of
the PWM rectifier and so regulating the working current of the
generator.
Take R phase as an example, the hase voltage control
R
should meet with the following equation[ 1:
When there is a symmetrical fault happened with the grid
side and causes a sudden grid-voltage-dip, supportive reactive
power is needed to survive transient fault conditions, and wind
power system will play a vital role to enhance stability for large
electricity grids. The specific control modes are stated as
follows:
I) At the generator side, it can be concluded from equation
(3) that the load demand decreases during the low voltage ride­
through period. So the wind power generator is required to
work stably, which can be achieved by adjusting the pitch
angle so as to cut down the wind volume. And simultaneously,
it also required that the PWM rectifier to adjust its AC side
voltage UR and minus its rotating coordinate component of
active current hence to limit the injection of active power.

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 2) At the grid side, the grid-connected current will increase Combining equation (4) and equation (5), it can be obtained
acutely in presence of a sudden grid-voltage-dip, of which both that,
active and reactive power is required to support the voltage
stability, while how much reactive power is determined by the
rate of voltage-dip. In another word, it could be all reactive
while no active power to be injected to grid when voltage-dip
exceeds. So according to the rate of the voltage-dip detected, where Mw can be obtained from the curve of wind turbine
supportive reactive current can be provided to the grid through power-speed characteristics. And according to equation (7) the
regulation of the AC side voltage Uu and its rotate coordinate angular velocity 0/ can be calculated:
reactive component based on the rule as showed in Fig.l(b).
OJ =-
* 1f I1P -ML)dt--
C
l1u2
de (7)
3) At the DC-link, the input power will remain unchanged J
W
J
when the demand of active power suddenly drops from the grid
side. It can be drawn from the equation (3) that the excess Therefore, according to the vector control principle after
power will be converted into reactive power and stored in the 3/2 coordinate transfonnation, i; and i; can be determined
DC-link capacitor, where voltage increases and causes risk of
operation with power devices. One of the commonly seen respectively, and then the reference voltage vector u ; and u ;.
measures is parallel connection with the unloading circuit Moreover, I1PG is reduced by the PWM rectifier controlling in
(Crowbar), i.e. to release the bus voltage through discharging
from the unloading resistance. Hence, the actual control order to satisfy the requirement of power balance.
parameters can be calculated with measurement of the In this process, if DC-link voltage exceeds the limit, the
capacitor voltage variable, and power balance achieved by unloading circuit will be started to release the energy stored in
controlling the output power from the wind generator and grid­ the capacitor as soon as possible, so as to limit down ML and
connected power from the inverter.
protect power devices.
C. LVRT Control Strategy Based On DC-link Voltage The LVRT control flow chart is shown in Figure.3:
In order to keep power balance, it can be derived from
equation (3) that:

Me; -Mr. = �Qc = �Ude' ide = �Ude' C d;t (4) /',.11.11/ No

> 10%
[lou

When the grid is operating in steady state, M

J.
= f1Pc; ,
t.Qc = 0, so Ude is constant.
Reducing
Yes Voltage by
When voltage-dip happens with grid-side, the demand of
unloading
M
L
will decrease and t.Pc; remain unchanged for rotational circuit
inertia, and t.Qc No
> 0 for Udc slowly rises as the effect of large
capacitance. Variation of power can be calculated from the rate Reducing speed of motor,
reducing power 6PG;
of voltage variable. Reducing power of grid 6PL'
providing reactive current
At the grid-side, M
J.
can be obtained by the following
process: firstly, the required reactive current isq can be Inverter operation in
normal on-grid
computed according to the volume of voltage-dip U�U and the
compensation rules shown in Fig.l(b); secondly the required Figure 3. Process chart of LVRT control
active current i,d is obtained, and then ML = l1u,I'U . isd . In the
process of PWM inverter control, the coordinate transformation IV. THE SIMULATION RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
vector control method is adapted to detennine the reactive Simulation system model is built with MatlablSimulink,
power provided to the grid. and the block diagram of LVRT control system is shown in
At the generator side, I1Pc; can be reduced down by FigureA, with which the coordinate transformation vector
control method is used for regulating of the AC side voltage of
restricting the speed of wind turbine. Ignoring the no-load loss, the converter, and simulation is processed as above mentioned.
the equation for generator performance is:
System parameters are: pennanent magnet synchronous
dQ J dm
M -M, =J = (5) generator Ld Lq 8 .5mH , 'f' O.175Wb , R = 3.5830. ,
= = =
.1

W (, dt p dt
J=O.5xlO- kg·m2,3
4 pole pairs; PWM rectifier DC-link
where t.Pw is increment of wind power output. capacitor C = 1200� , grid-connected inductor L = 8mH .

1171
 Ri-l-r----.----l Simulation results are based on the given grid voltage-dips,
II
and the corresponding waveforms with LVRT control strategy
are shown in Fig.5. We can learn from it that during the period
of 1s-l.2s, firstly, the grid phase-voltage drops to 25% of its
AC Grid nominal value and with the LVRT control, the current
amplitude from the PWM inverter to the grid decreases after a
short increase. Meanwhile, the output of reactive power
increases as active power decreases. Moreover, the phase­
voltage recovered right at l.2s while the phase-current within 6
electric cycles. After that, with gradual increase of active
power and decrease of reactive power, the adjustment arrest
when the power factor becomes -1.
Figure.4 Block diagram of LVRT control system [t can also be seen that the output current is well sinusoidal,
on yet the adjustment time span is a little bit longer, this is because
:m of the sluggish voltage-change on the DC-link capacitor.
C an
�
� 1m
OJ;
�

V. CONCLUSION
.§ -1m
§ '4l1 The low voltage ride-through characteristics are analyzed
� ""
�

;: with full-power converter for wind-power system of direct­

..... '-1 u
drive PMSG. On basis of the LVRT requirements and power
(a) The recovery of grid phase voltage in Is-1.2s (tis) balance, the LVRT control strategies are discussed respectively
when in connection to the grid in steady state, in LVRT
�r----'-----'--.--�
� l!:a condition, or in a DC-voltage controlled LVRT conditions
:: 10
from standpoints of generator side, inverter DC-link, as well as
the grid side. With the application of the coordinate
�,
U
transformation vector control, the simulation results prove the
� ·10
ro ·15
effectiveness of the proposed method that phase current well
� ��!--��---+----�--�.---�--�-�,- controlled, power balanced and response quickly traced.

(b) The output phase current during voltage-dip (tis)

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........................ ,.
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l :
" , " ........... " " " ., : "
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----- -</ •
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Figure.5 Simulation waveforms with LVRT control

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