ROPEC 2015 - Advances on Renewable Energy

Methodology for Optimal Bus Placement to Integrate

Wind Farm Optimizing Power Flows
Ismael Molina-Moreno, Aurelio Medina and Rafael Cisneros-Magaña
Facultad de Ingeniería Eléctrica, División de Estudios de Posgrado
Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo
Morelia, México
imolina@dep.fie.umich.mx, amedinr@gmail.com, rcisneros@dep.fie.umich.mx

Abstract—This paper proposes an alternative algorithm to
locate the optimal bus placement to integrate wind farms based
on the criterion of minimizing the electrical losses using the
solution of the power flow problem to identify the best connection
point. The wind farm is modeled as a negative load being possible
to connect this power generation to the possible connection buses
and obtaining the power flow solution for each different
connection point as a generation change or displacement. The
IEEE 14, 30 and 57 bus test systems have been used to validate
the proposed methodology. The results have shown the optimal
bus among a possible set of them that causes minimum losses
when a wind farm is integrated to it.
Keywords—losses; negative load; point of common coupling;
power flow; wind farm integration; wind power generator.
I. INTRODUCTION
Renewable wind power has become important being an
alternative to reduce or substitute the conventional electrical
generation sources. The number of wind farms has been
increasing in the world. The efficient use of various renewable
energy resources is one of the main objectives for energy
development and generation. Wind energy is one of the most
environment friendly, clean and safe energy resources. A
review of technical issues on the development of wind farms is
given in [1]. The main parts of a wind farm are the connection
circuit, the collector circuit, the wind turbines; a technical
description of wind generation is given in [2-3].
It is important to select the point of common coupling
(PCC) of wind farms, since this point influences on the power
system stability, voltage stability, and power quality due to the
randomness of the wind speed and the electrical characteristics
of wind generators. When the PCC presents voltage
fluctuations, phenomenon known as weak grid connection, it is
necessary to compensate this situation; there is an extensive
literature for this purpose, e.g. [4-5].
Increased penetration of wind power introduces adverse
conditions such as: loss of synchronism, voltage collapse, load
shedding, large deviations in voltage and/or frequency,
introducing flicker and harmonics, high transmission and
distribution losses, over loading and increased power
oscillation [6]. A number of methodologies and techniques are
available depending on the wind availability, grid limitation
and varies from country to country and region to region. In
general, some of the methods to maximize the wind penetration
are to use suitable type of wind turbines in the wind farms,
which are connected at suitable buses and to use suitable grid
control mechanisms to enable maximum penetration [7-8].
Double fed induction generator (DFIG) based wind turbine
has been used for the configuration of wind farms. The
induction machine is commonly used as generator in wind
farms due to its ease of operation and low maintenance.
However, these generators demand reactive power from the
system to generate real power. This reactive power
consumption influences the stability of the power system and
its voltage regulation according with the location of the
induction generators in the system, therefore, the connection
point of wind parks with induction generators must be verified
and carefully selected [1].
The bus voltage varies inversely with the reactive power
consumption in the electrical load connected to the
corresponding bus. The fluctuations in bus voltages and
reactive power modify the power system voltage stability [8].
Wind farms should be connected to a strong bus to do not
affect the power system stability and to increase the wind
turbines integration.
Reference [9] presented a methodology to obtain the
maximum instantaneous wind penetration by the optimal grid
control parameters using particle swarm optimization. The
methodology consists on placing the DFIG based wind farm at
suitable location and utilizing a suitable algorithm to enable
maximum grid penetration. The bus at which the wind farm to
be placed has been identified by the computation of wind farm
placement index is based on assessing the related impacts and
benefits [10]. The best location for connecting the wind farm
has been judged by the calculation of Wind Farm Placement
Index (WFPI) by taking into account the parameters such as
voltage limits and voltage stability, wind speed,
interconnecting cable length and bus load absorption capability.
The objective of this research work is to propose an
alternative method for optimal bus placement to integrate wind
farms.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section II
describes the proposed methodology to find the best connection
point for a wind farm; Section III describes the test power
systems; Section IV reports the results of the power flow study

978-1-4673-7121-6/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE

 ROPEC 2015 - Advances on Renewable Energy

to locate the wind farm connection point, and Section V draws
the main conclusions of this research work.
II. THE PROPOSED METHODOLOGY
A. Preliminary concepts
1) Power flow.
Investors and companies can perform preliminary studies
necessary for the connection of power plants. One of the most
commonly used in the planning, economical scheduling, and
design of electrical systems is the power flow analysis, which
calculates the conditions of steady-state operation of the
system. The power generated by the wind farm can be
predicted by knowing the wind measurements and the type of
turbine to use [11].
The power flow problem consists on determining the
magnitude and phase angle of voltage at each bus and active
and reactive power flow in each line. Network equations can be
formulated systematically in a variety of forms. However, the
bus-voltage method is the most suitable form for many power
system analyses; this method is the most commonly used. The
power in each bus is given so the resulting nonlinear equation
in terms of power is called power flow equation. The power
flow equation given by (1) is nonlinear and is solved by
iterative methods such as Gauss-Seidel and Newton-Raphson
[12].
n n
( Pi − jQi ) / Vi * = Vi ∑ yij −∑ yijV j , i ≠ j
j =0 j =0
2) Negative load.
The concept of negative load has been applied to wind
generators to indicate their capability for delivering current
meanwhile their voltage is imposed by the electrical system at
the connection point [16-17]. The same concept has been
applied for studying dispatch or spinning reserve considering
that the total regulating power required at any moment
depends on the sum the system load and the wind power
which can counterbalance or increase load variations. In this
way, aggregated variations must be investigated regarding
wind power as negative load [18-19].
3) Wind farm.
A simple connection of a wind farm to the power system is
represented in Fig. 1 [20-21]. Wind farms demand reactive
power to operate adequately. This reactive power can be
supplied by different ways such as capacitive banks, FACTS or
custom power devices, e.g. in Fig. 1 capacitive banks represent
the reactive power compensation.
The connection line for each wind generator is modeled as
series impedance Zi defined by,
Z i = Ri + jX i (5)
The impedance Zcon represents the transformer and the
connection line between the wind farm and the bus of
integration, this impedance is given by,
(1)
Z CON = RCON + jX CON (6)

Where Pi and Qi are the real and reactive power at bus i, The length of the connection line depends on the wind farm
respectively and yij is the admittance between buses i and j. placement and the bus of integration location.
After the iterative solution of bus voltages, the next step is
the computation of line flows and line losses. The complex
apparent powers Sij from bus i to j and Sji from bus j to i are
given by

Sij = Vi * I ij (2)

S ji = V j * I ji (3)

The power loss SLij in line i-j is determined by

S Lij = Sij + S ji (4)

Today, there are several computational tools to make

power flow studies both commercial, such as PowerWorld
Simulator [13], and open access such as Power System Fig. 1. Connection of a wind farm to a bus representing the power system
Analysis Toolbox (PSAT) [14], which is a Matlab® toolbox [20].
for electric power system analysis and simulation and
Matpower [15], which is a package of Matlab® M-files for
solving power flow and optimal power flow problems.
 ROPEC 2015 - Advances on Renewable Energy
B. Proposed algorithm
Applying the concept of negative load, power flow studies
can be extended to determine the losses in a power system
which integrates wind power generation. The wind farm is
modeled as an injection of real power and an extraction of
reactive power to the system in the bus under analysis. This
new apparent power injection is connected to the system,
which modifies the generating power system condition; a
power flow solution is required and assessed to obtain the
corresponding power losses and the efficiency under this new
generating condition.
The wind farm connection originates changes; each
generator in the system automatically reduces its generated real
power according to the new real power injection, but has to
generate part of the reactive power demanded by the wind
generators in the new connected wind farm, also the power
flows are modified [22-24]. The regulation and stability of bus
voltages may be verified for each wind farm connection point
using the magnitude of voltage; also the power system stability
may be analyzed reviewing the angle value of each bus voltage
[25-26].
The wind farm connection point is changed to other buses
in the system. For each bus under analysis, new power flow
solutions are obtained; power losses and efficiency are
assessed.
The results are compared to select the connection point of
the wind farm. This point is the bus with the minimum power
losses corresponding to the maximum efficiency obtained
through the power flow study with the wind farm connected to
the corresponding bus. The proposed methodology is illustrated
in Fig. 2.
Set wind farm real power
Set bus = 1
Assess the power flow study
Save the particular power losses
No
bus = bus +1 bus = n
Yes
Select the bus that yields minimum losses
Fig. 2. Flowchart of method to obtain the optimal bus that yields minimum
losses.
Setting of wind real power considers the probable power
generation which depends on wind and the number of wind
generators [27-29]. The iterative process begins by assuming
the bus 1 as the first option. It can evaluate a set of probable
buses. For each selected bus the power flow solution will give
the total losses. Hence, the bus that yields lower losses will be
the best candidate to be the PCC.
The required data for the power flow study are collected as
lines, buses, wind turbines, synchronous generators, and
electrical load characteristics, also bus voltage limits and line
loading limits. Base values are defined to obtain the per unit
values. The wind park is connected to the bus under analysis;
then the power flow program is executed to obtain the power
flow solution.
III. TEST POWER SYSTEMS DESCRIPTION
A. Test power systems
Several test systems have been used to find the connection
point of a wind park. In this research work, the IEEE 14, 30
and 57 bus test systems, which their parameter data are
reported in [30], have been modified to conduct case studies
with the proposed methodology.
B. Modified 14-bus test power system
For illustrative purpose, the modified IEEE 14 bus test
system is shown in Fig. 3. It can be noticed that a wind farm
has been connected to bus 3. The wind farm is represented by
a wind-turbine integrated model [1]. The rest of system
consists of five synchronous generators; three of them are
synchronous condensers to regulate the reactive power supply.
Eleven electrical inductive loads are connected to selected
buses in the system. Bus 1 is the slack bus, buses 2, 3, 6 and 8
are controlled voltage buses (PV), the rest are load buses (PQ),
and these electrical loads are represented by a constant power
model independent of the bus voltage magnitude. The power
system components are represented, according to the IEEE 14
bus test system specification. The synchronous generators are
modeled as real and reactive power sources. All parameter
values are in per unit (pu); a three-phase base power of 100
MVA and a phase–phase base voltage of 230 kV are used to
evaluate the pu values.
C. Case study scopes
The length of wind farm connection line has been
considered as a fixed value since it is assumed that localization
of the wind farm is unknown.
As shown in Fig. 1, the reactive power demanded by the
wind farms can be supplied using capacitive compensation.
Matpower, a Matlab power system simulation package,
version 5.1, has been selected to conduct the power flow
studies [15].
 ROPEC 2015 - Advances on Renewable Energy
Fig. 3. Modified14-bus test power system for wind farm integration.
IV. RESULTS
A. Case study: Modified 14-bus test system
The modified 14-bus test system has been evaluated
considering four different power capacities of the wind farm.
Fig. 4 shows the total real losses that implies each connection
bus. It can be noticed that the best connection bus that causes
the minimum total power losses is the number 3 regardless of
wind farm power capacity. Fig. 5 shows the corresponding total
reactive losses associated to each connection bus. Although the
connection bus number 3 causes low reactive loss not
necessarily is the minimum loss; for this case the use of the
connection bus number 9 is the one that generates the
minimum reactive losses. However, the selected connection
bus should be the number 3 due to reactive losses can be
compensated. This result agrees with the obtained in [9].
B. Case study: Modified 30-bus test system
The modified 30-bus test system has been evaluated
considering four different power capacities of the wind farm.
Fig. 6 shows the total real power losses associated to each
connection bus; it can be observed that for a 25 MW of wind
power capacity, the total losses are similar regardless the
selected connection bus. The particular optimal connection bus
which generates the lowest real loss is the number 10.
However, when the wind power capacity is increased and the
connection bus is one from 11 to 30, the real losses notoriously
increase and the best connection bus tends to be the number 9;
although for 100 MW of wind power capacity, the particular
optimal connection bus is the number 1. Hence, it appears that
in this case study, the optimal connection bus depends of the
power capacity of the wind farm.
Fig. 7 shows the total reactive power losses that cause each
connection bus, where the behavior is similar to the real power
losses case, with small differences between the particular
optimal buses and the ones obtained in real power losses cases.
For 100 MW of wind power, the best connection bus is the
number 1 as in the real power losses case.
C. Case study: Modified 57-bus test system
The modified 57-bus test system has been evaluated
considering four different power capacities of the wind farm. In
this case a set of possible connection buses, from 1 to 18, have
been analyzed to determine the best connection bus. Fig. 8 and
Fig. 9 show the total real and reactive power losses,
respectively that are associated when a particular connection
bus is considered. The same performance of the proposed
methodology is observed when compared with previous cases.
The particular optimal connection bus that causes the minimum
power losses, to be selected between the possible buses 1 to 18,
is the number 12.
D. General observations
Tables I and II present the best connection bus that generate
the lowest loss. This connection bus also depends on power
wind capacity. The best connection bus is that one that causes
the lowest loss which can be considered to integrate the wind
farm according to the minimum power loss criterion. The
optimal connection bus not always matches both criteria, real
and reactive loss minimum. However, the real power criterion
will be predominant over the reactive power loss due to this
power can be compensated. Although the optimal connection
bus depends on the wind farm power capacity, it can be noticed
that the optimal connection bus tends to one.
The results of the previous case studies show that the
minimum power losses criterion has a different selection when
the wind farm power capacity changes.
Fig. 4. Proposed method response that finds the connection bus that causes
the minimum real power losses applied to the modified IEEE 14-bus test
system.
 ROPEC 2015 - Advances on Renewable Energy

Fig. 5. Reactive power loss from the power flow study to apply the minimum Fig. 8. Real power loss associated to connection bus from 1 to 18 buses using
reactive power loss criterion using the modified IEEE 14-bus test system. the modified IEEE 57-bus test system.

Fig. 6. Total real power losses associated to each connection bus for four Fig. 9. Total reactive power loss associated to the selected connection bus
power capacities using the modified 30-bus test system. from 1 to 18 buses using the modified IEEE 57-bus test system.

TABLE I. BEST CONNECTION BUS ACCORDING TO MINIMUM REAL

POWER LOSS CRITERION

Bus Wind Power Capacity (MW)

system 25 50 75 100
14 3 3 3 3
30 10 9 9 1
57 10 12 12 12

TABLE II. BEST CONNECTION BUS ACCORDING TO MINIMUM REACTIVE

POWER LOSS CRITERION

Bus Wind Power Capacity (MW)

system 25 50 75 100
14 14 9 9 9
30 8 8 6 1
57 10 10 12 12
Fig. 7. The optimal connection bus differs notoriously when the power wind
capacity vary on the modified IEEE 30-bus test system.
 ROPEC 2015 - Advances on Renewable Energy
V. CONCLUSIONS
A methodology for optimal connection bus placement to
integrate wind farms optimizing power flows has been
proposed. The performance of the proposed methodology has
been tested in modified 14, 30 and 57-bus test power systems;
the proposed algorithm has found the connection bus that
yields the minimum loss in all cases.
For the case where the reactive power is not compensated,
the proposed methodology identifies which alternative
connection bus can be considered as the best connection bus to
integrate the wind farms.
The proposed methodology has shown that the best selected
bus depends on the wind power capacity. It has also shown that
the power losses depend on the topology of the power system
under analysis.
This methodology can be incorporated to the Wind Farm
Placement Index to improve such index.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors gratefully acknowledge to the Universidad
Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo through the Facultad de
Ingeniería Eléctrica, División de Estudios de Posgrado (FIE-
DEP) Morelia, México, for the facilities granted to carry out
this investigation. The first author wishes to thank the study
leave granted by the Instituto Tecnológico de Morelia and the
Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología of México
(CONACYT) to finance his doctoral studies at the FIE-DEP.
The second author acknowledges financial support from
CONACYT for this investigation.
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