Smoothening of wind farm output fluctuations using new pitch controller

Abstract

Recently, renewable energy sources, like wind power generation, are widely being used in the world. Among various renewable resources, wind energy seems to be promising solution to provide reliable power supply with improved system efficiency. It is essential for wind farm to control the frequency as well as power. Some methods for smoothing the wind generator output fluctuations using several types of energy storage systems have been proposed, but these methods have a cost of problem. This paper proposes a new pitch control system for smoothing the wind generator output fluctuations. The simulation results show that the wind farm output fluctuations due to the wind speed variations can be smooth more effectively by the new pitch controller than the conventional pitch controller. It is confirmed that the wind farm output gives rise to fluctuations of system frequency more as the power capacity of wind farm becomes large. The wind farm output fluctuations, as well as energy and the power system frequency can be made more accurate by using new pitch controller. PSCAD software has been used for simulation analyses.