A COODINATED VOLTAGE CONTROL SCHEME FOR
POWER SYSTEM WITH LARGE-SCALE WIND POWER
INTEGRATION
Li Peng*, Wang Yuting, Huang Haosheng*, Kong Xiangping*, Yuan Yubo*
*Jiangsu Electric Power Company Research Institute, Nanjing, 211100, China
Nanjing SAC Automation CO. LTD, Nanjing, 211100, China
Keywords: coordinated voltage control, wind power, double-
fed induction generator (DFIG),
Abstract
To solve the technical problems about secure and stable
operation of wind power integration, voltage control scheme
for power system with large-scale wind farm integration is
studied in this paper. A layered control structure for DFIG
wind farm grid-connected system is designed. The control
scheme and model of the system decision-making layer is
presented to decide the task of wind farms on-line. Moreover,
considering restriction and operation characteristic of DFIG,
the control capability of wind farm may be evaluated, and
wind farm control algorithm and strategy are proposed.
Finally, the implementation of coordinated voltage control
strategy for wind power grid-connected system is presented.
1 Introduction
Wind power has been the fastest growing industry in the
development and utilization of renewable energy. At present,
a large number of wind power system has been integrated in
the power network [1-2]. The plant, based on doubly-fed
induction generator (DFIG) or permanent magnet generator
(PMG), etc., have fast reactive and voltage regulation
capability. It is helpful to reduce the adverse effects and
ensure the stable operation of the wind farm by regulating
rationally. More, coordinated with the voltage control means
of power network, the wind farm can support system voltage
quickly by regulating reactive power output, which is benefit
to strengthen the voltage control capability and improve the
voltage stability of power system [3-8].
In view of the characteristics of wind power development in
China, large-scale group wind farm access to transmission
power network directly. The study is mainly related to
improve the voltage stability of wind power integrated system.
By regulating the wind power generation and allocating the
reactive power rationally, it can take advantage of power
control capabilities of the wind farm to participate in the
coordinated voltage control of power system.
2 Wind farm voltage control
The coordinated voltage control of power system with wind
power integration can utilizing the reactive power control
capability of wind power. The large-scale wind farm can be
taken as a whole to participate in voltage control.
2.1 Control mode of DFIG
The DFIG receives control orders from the wind farm control
center under steady-state or dynamic condition and regulate
reactive power by integrated controller to achieve the control
task of wind farm.
Order
Wind farm
Pitch Control
Generator state control center
Main
integrated
Power
Converter controller V
control P,Q
state
DFIG and
Converter
Fig.1 The structure of DFIG integrated controller
The DFIG can control active power and reactive power
independently. The voltage control of DFIG is utilizing the
reactive power of generator and converter, which is mainly
included rotor-side converter (RSC) control and grid-side
converter (GSC) control. To take full advantage of the ability
of DFIG, the coordination of RSC and GSC control must be
considered. The reactive power can be allocated by according
to the reactive power margin of DIFG stator and GSC.
2.2 Control capability of DFIG-based wind farm
Voltage control of wind farm is restricted by the reactive
power limitation of wind turbine, which is related to operation
mode, generator and converter capacity of DFIG.
A. Reactive power of DFIG-based wind turbine
For the DFIG-based wind turbine, the decoupling control is
adopt to active power and reactive power control, and the
active power control is priority, generally. Under certain
active power output, voltage regulation capability of DFIG is
mainly affected by the limitation of generator stator current,
RSC and GSC capacity, etc.
With the stator current limitation, the stator reactive power
Qs of generator satisfies
Qs d Qs1max Vs2 I s2max  Ps2 (1)
Where, I s max is maximum stator current of DFIG, and Ps is For wind farm i, according to the control order Vref ,i from
the stator active power. system control center, the wind farm voltage controller
ref
determines the reactive power reference Qwf ,i by feedback
The limitation of RSC have influence on the stator reactive
power Qs , as following: the voltage Vi of wind farm access point. Specifically, the PI-
controller can be used to voltage controller of wind farm.
Qs 2 min d Qs d Qs 2 max

Vs2 x
2 Ultimately, dut to that the control task is achieved by DFIGs,
Qs 2 max   m Vs I r max  Ps2 (2) it is important to allocate the reactive power demand of wind
xss xss farm to DFIGs. The reactive power allocation strategy is
2 proposed as following:
Vs2 x
Qs 2 min   m Vs I r max  Ps2
xss x
ss Firstly, assume that N ic is the set of DFIGs which have
Where, I s max is upper limit current of RSC. Vs is the stator regulation capability. The participation factor qi , k
voltage of DFIG. xss xs  xm , xs and xm is reactance of (k 1, , N i ) is defined for DFIG of wind farm i as following:
stator and magnetizing of generator, respectively. Qgimax
, k  Qgi , k
qi , k , k N ic
Considering on (1) and (2), the stator reactive power  Qgimax,m  Qgi,m 
mN ic (7)
limitation of DFIG can be expressed as following:
Qsmax min ^Qs1max , Qs 2 max ` Qgimax
,k  Qgi , k
(3) qi , k ref
, k N ic
Qsmin max ^Qs1max , Qs 2 min ` Qwf ,i  Qwf ,i
Secondary, the reactive power reference Qgiref, k (k 1, , N i )
With the GSC limitation, the reactive power Qc of GSC of DFIGs can be determined
satisfies Qgiref, k Qgi , k  qi , k (Qwf
ref
,i  Qwf ,i ), k
1, , N i (8)
Vs I c max    sPs 
2 2
Qc d Qcmax (4) Based on (7) and (8), it is easy to say that reactive power
Where, I c max is upper limit current of GSC, and s is the demand of wind farm is allocated to DFIGs according to their
reactive power margin. For generator out of limit, the control
generator slip of DFIG. signal will reduce its power output, which can put the
generator back to limitation. It is benefit to coordinate the
Furthermore, with (3) and (4), the reactive power limitation of DFIG in wind farm.
DFIG with RSC and GSC reactive power control is following:
Qgmin d Qg Qs  Qc d Qgmax Furthermore, with above voltage controller and task
min min max assignation algorithm, the principle chart of WFVC strategy
Qg Qs  Qc (5)
is shown in Fig.2.
Qgmax Qsmax  Qcmax
DFIG(1) RSC
DFIG controller

+ + +
Reactive
B. Regulation capability of wind farm _ _ DFIG(k) + power
GSC
allocation
controller
DFIG(k+1)
For DFIG wind farm i, reactive power Qwf ,i of whole wind compensate

farm is limited by DFIG wind turbine, as following:

DFIG(Ni)
Ni Wind farm voltage controller Task assignation of wind farm
min
Qwf ,i d Qwf ,i Qgi,k d max
Qwf ,i Fig.2 Voltage control principle of DFIG-based wind farm
k 1
(6)
Ni Ni It can be seen that the WFVC strategy can generate power
min
Qwf ,i Qgimin
,k , max
Qwf ,i Qgimax
,k reference of DFIG converter, which is compatible to
k 1 k 1
conventional control of DFIG converter.
Where, N i is the total number of DFIG wind turbine in wind
farm i. Qgimax min
, k and Qgi , k are the reactive power limitation of 3. Coordinated Voltage Control Algorithm for
kth DFIG of wind farm i, which is determined by (5). Wind Power Integrated System

2.3 Voltage control strategy of Wind farm

3.1 Power network equivalent model
The wind farm voltage control (WFVC) can be implemented
by voltage controller and task assignation of wind farm. As seen in [9], all nodes of power network is divided into two
classes: voltage source nodes D G and load nodes D L , for
which relevant variables and parameters are denoted with Where, VLkmin is the lower voltage limit of k. VLk0 is operation
subscript G and L, respectively. By transforming the node
voltage of k. The corresponding objective value of equivalent
voltage equations of power network, a two-node equivalent ob
model can be obtained for node j ( jD L ) as following potential is Eeqk

V& E&  Z& I&
Lj eqj eqj eqj (9) ob
SLeqk
Eeqk VLk , ref  Z eqk (14)
VLk , ref
I&Leqj  I&Lj  Z&LLjj
1
Z&LLji I&Li (10)
iD L ,iz j

Where, E&eqj and Z&eqj is the equivalent potential and

Finally, the control amount 'VG ( , 'VGl ,)T l D S can
equivalent impedance of node j. I&Leqj is the equivalent load be obtained by solving following optimization problem.
2
current, and the equivalent load power S&eqj V&Lj I&Leqj
*
. The
two-node equivalent system of node j is shown in Fig.1.
min F dk  wGkl 'VGl  rl 'VGl2
kScL lD S lD S

s.t. dk ob
Eeqk  Eeqk (15)

'VGlmin d 'VGl d 'VGlmax ,

Fig. 3 Two-bus equivalent system of load node j
3.2 Coordinated Voltage Control Algorithm
Base on above WFVC strategy, the wind farm or wind farm
group can be treated as a voltage source with automatic
voltage regulator in power network. The equivalent model of
Fig.3 can be used for voltage control by regulating system-
side equivalent potential [9], ant the coordinated voltage
control algorithm for wind power integrated system is
proposed as following:
Firstly, the critical nodes of voltage stability are picked out to
form the set critical nodes set ScL.
Secondly, control nodes are decided for each critical node
k ScL , as following : for critical node k ScL , the influence
factor wGki of voltage source i on equivalent potential Eeqk of
k can be calculated by equivalent model of critical node k as
shown in Fig.3. The relationship between the variation of
equivalent potential 'Eeqk and source voltage
'VG ( , 'VGi ,)T i D G is following
'Eeqk wGki 'VGi
iD G
The voltage source which have a great control capability on
critical node k is picked out to compose the control set D Sk .
The control nodes set can be determined by (11)
D S  D Sk (12)
VGlmin d VGl  'VGl d VGlmax , l D S
Where, F is the objective function which consists of two
terms: the first is to guarantee voltage stability margin and the
second is to penalize the amount of control amount. rl is the
weight coefficient, which indicates the priority of the two
control objectives. For l D s , 'VGlmin and 'VGlmax is upper
and lower limit of control variable, respectively, and VGlmin
and VGlmax is upper and lower limit of voltage source ,
respectively. It is indicated that the objective function is a
linear quadratic programming, which can be solved to
effectively.
4. Voltage control scheme of wind power
integrated power system
The coordinated voltage control scheme of wind power
integrated power system is shown in Fig.4. It can be seen that
reactive power limitation is calculated by the DFIG controller
in real time and updated to wind farm control center. The
wind farm control center carries out the WFVC algorithm and
calculates reactive power limitation of wind farm. In the
power system voltage control center, voltage control model
and algorithm is presented, in which the control nodes are
(11) decided by considering effectiveness and control capability of
voltage source nodes, and the control inputs are obtained by
solving a simple optimized problem.
System control Wind farm-i
center
control center
Voltage stability
monitoring Control
controller controller controller

kScL capability
calculation
Control node
selection

Third, the calculation model of voltage control. For critical
and task allocation
Voltage regulation
Voltage bias V

Solve control model

node k ScL , given VLk , ref is the control objective, which is

set a reasonable value to maintain a sufficient voltage stability controller controller controller
margin, such as
VLk0 , VLk t VLkmin
VLk , ref min k ScL (13) Fig.4 Coordinated voltage control Scheme of wind farm grid-
min
VLk , VLk  VLk connected system
5. Simulation Verification
The simulations are conducted on the modified IEEE 9-bus
system system, as shown in Fig.5, and following models are
used for power system component
x Aggregate exponential recovery load model for dynamic
load [10], with D s E s 0.0 , D t Et 2.0 , TP TQ 10.0 .
x Third order model of synchronous machines.
x IEEE type DC-1 automatic voltage regulator.
shown in Fig.7(b). To maintain constant power factor, the
FPFC strategy reduces reactive power of wind farm with the
decreasing of wind velocity. The WFVC strategy, responding
to the dropping of voltage, increases reactive power of wind
farm rapidly. The load node voltage V6 is shown in Fig.7(c).
The simulation result shows that, compared with the FPFC
mode, the proposed WFVC strategy can maintain the voltage
of wind farm access point near the steady value under
disturbance condition.

0.4
1

Reactive power Qwf /p.u

0.98 0.3

Voltage/p.u
FPFO
0.96
0.2
WFVC
0.94
FPFO
0.1
0.92
WFVC
0.9 0
0 10 20 30 0 10 20 30
Time/s Time/s

(a) Voltage of WF (b) Reactive power of WF

Fig.5 One-line diagram of modified IEEE 9-bus system 0.94

FPFO
WFVC

Voltage/p.u
0.93
The per unit system is use to normalize system variable with
base power 100MW. The load L1 and L2 are dynamic load, 0.92

and L3 is constant impedance. The rated capacity of machine 0.91

G1 and G2 are 370MVA and 210MVA, respectively. The 0.9

0 10 20 30
wind farm WF is composed of 100*2MW DFIG wind Time/s

turbines, and the integration capacity is 25.6%. For the DFIG, (c) Voltage of load node 5
the active power adopts optimum power tracking control, Fig.7 Dynamic response of WF with coordinated voltage
which is decouple with the reactive power control. control

5.1 Validity of WFVC
The simulations are conducted on kinds of control strategies
of DFIG-based wind farm, such as: fixed power factor control
(FPFC) and WFVC presented in 2.3. With disturbance on the
wind velocity, the simulation result is shown as following.
5.2 Coordinated Voltage Control of the Wind Power
Integrated System
The simulation is conducted with large disturbance of power
network to verify the coordinated voltage control of wind
farm. Simplicity, in (15), rl 0.01 ( l D S ), VLkmin 0.9 pu

The wind velocity is modelled as the composition of basic and VLkmax 1.15 pu ( l D L {4,5, 6, 7,8,9} ). The control
wind, gust, gradient wind and turbulence. With basic wind is cycle is Ts=10.0s. Other settings is shown in in Table I.
9.6m/s, the wind velocity is depicted in Fig.6. Corresponding
dynamic response of system voltage under different control Source Node l ('VGlmin , 'VGlmax ) /pu (VGlmin , VGlmax ) /pu
strategies is shown in Fig.7. G1 1 (0.001,0.03) (0.90,1.2)
G2 2 (0.001,0.03) (0.90,1.2)
10 WF 3 (0.001,0.02) (0.90,1.15)
Table I Settings of coordinated voltage control
wind velocity/ms -1

8
With basic wind is 9.6m/s, the wind velocity depicted in Fig.8
7 is composed of basic wind and turbulence. The WFVC
6 strategy is adopted for WF. The disturbance is that load of
5
node 5 and 6 suddenly increased by 20% at 2.0s. The voltage
0 5 10 15
Time/s
20 25 30 of node 3 (WF accessed point), node 5 and 6 (load node) is
Fig.6 Curve of wind velocity shown in Fig.9. With load increasing, voltage level of power
network is decaying. If no other control actions are taken, the
As shown in Fig.7(a), wind farm access point voltage V3 is voltage of load would be very low and node 5, 6 is the most
presented under the wind velocity disturbance in Fig.6. It is critical node, as shown in Fig.9 (b).
indicated that: V3 decrease greatly with FPFC mode, and V3
can stand near the steady value with WFVC strategy. The With the coordinated voltage control scheme of section 4, the
reactive power of wind farm under different control mode is dynamic response of wind power integrated power system is
shown in Fig.10 and Fig.11. The voltage curve of load node 5 designed. Considering restriction and operation characteristic
and 6 is depicted in Fig.10(a) and Fig.10(b), respectively, and of DFIG, the control capability of wind farm may be
the voltage and reactive power of wind farm is shown in evaluated, and wind farm control algorithm and strategy are
Fig.11(a) and Fig.11(b). proposed. More, a voltage control model and algorithm is
15 presented, in which the control nodes are decided by
considering effectiveness and control capability of voltage
-1
wind velocity/ms

source nodes, and the control inputs are obtained by solving a

10 simple optimized problem. Finally, the implementation of
coordinated voltage control strategy for wind power grid-
5
connected system is presented. The scheme can be directly
applied in control center of power system and wind farm.
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Time/s Simulations conducted on typical systems demonstrate that
the scheme has high performance, which adapts to on-line
Fig.8 Curve of wind velocity
voltage stability control.
1.02
0.95
V5
V6
References
0.9
Voltage/p.u

1.01
Voltage/p.u

0.85
[1] Nayeem Rahmat U, Torbjrn T. Variable speed wind
1 turbines for power system stability enhancement. IEEE
0.8
Transactions on Energy Conversion, 22 (1), pp.52-60,
0.99
0 20 40 60 0 20 40 60 (2007).
Time/s Time/s
[2] Clark K, Miller N. Reactive power control for wind-
(a)WF accessed point 3 (b) load node 5 and 6 turbine generators[C]. Proceedings of Nordic Wind
Fig.9 Voltage curve of power network Power Conference, Espoo, Finland, 2006.
[3] El Moursi M, Joos G, Abbey C. A secondary voltage
0.95 0.95
control strategy for transmission level interconnection of
wind generation[J]. IEEE Transactions on Power
Voltage/p.u

Voltage/p.u

0.9 0.9 Electronics, 2008, 23 (3): 1178-1190.

[4] Hee-Sang K, Gi-Gab Y, Won-Pyo H. Active use of
0.85 0.85
DFIG-based variable-speed wind-turbine for voltage
0.8 0.8 regulation at a remote location[J]. IEEE Transactions on
0 20 40 60 80 0 20 40 60 80
Time/s Time/s Power Systems, 2007, 22 (4): 1916-1925.
(a) Load node 5 (b) Load node 6 [5] Kayikci M, Milanovic JV. Reactive power control
Fig.10 Voltage curve of power network with coordinated strategies for DFIG-based plants[J]. IEEE Transactions
voltage control on Energy Conversion, 2007, 22 (2): 389-396.
[6] Tapia G, Tapia A, Ostolaza JX. Proportional-integral
regulator-based approach to wind farm reactive power
1.05 1.05 management for secondary voltage control[J]. IEEE
Transactions on Energy Conversion, 2007, 22 (2): 488-
Voltage/p.u

Voltage/p.u

1 1
0.95
0 20 40
Time/s
(a) Voltage of WF (b) Reactive power of WF
Fig.11 Dynamic response of WF with coordinated voltage
control
It is indicated that the coordinated voltage control can
calculate the voltage order efficiency and the wind farm can
regulate the reactive power rapidly, which is benefit to
prevent continuous deterioration of system condition
effectively and improve voltage stability margin and level of
power system. The proposed voltage control algorithm is
simple and adaptable, which is suit to be applied on-line.
6 Conclusion
By means of wind power group control, a layered control
structure for DFIG wind farm grid-connected system is
498.
[7] Wang Songyan, Zhu Lingzhi, Chen Ning. A Reactive
0.95
Power Control Strategy for Wind Farm Based on
60 80 0 20 40 60 80 Hierarchical Layered Principle. Automation of electric
Time/s
power systems, 33 (13), PP.83-88 (2009).
[8] LANG Yongqiang, ZHANG Xueguang, XU Dianguo.
Reactive Power Analysis and Control of Doubly Fed
Induction Generator Wind Farm. Proceedings of the
CSEE, 27 (9), pp.77-82 (2007).
[9] Li Peng, ZHANG Baohui, HAO Zhiguo. Voltage
control based on power system equivalent model.
Electric Power Automation Equipment, 31(3), pp.52-57
(2011).
[10] Karlsson DHill D JModeling and identification of
nonlinear dynamic loads in power system[J] IEEE
Trans on Power Systems19949(1)157-163