Active and reactive power regulation in grid connected wind energy systems with permanent magnet synchronous generator and matrix converter

Abstract

This study presents a simple voltage oriented vector control scheme to regulate active and reactive power in a grid connected variable speed wind electrical system that consists of permanent magnet synchronous generator and matrix converter, which enables the maximum power tracking in wind electrical systems. The maximum extractable power from wind is derived from power curves and set as reference active power. Reactive power reference is chosen as zero. The deviations in powers are processed by proportional and integral (PI) controllers which vary the voltage gain of MC through which the desired regulation of powers is carried out. Since the relationship between wind speed and reference active power is nonlinear, single PI controller is insufficient, hence gain scheduling is required to adjust the controller parameters in response to changes in wind speeds. The controller parameter change is abrupt in conventional gain scheduling which leads to unstable performance. To avoid this, neural network-based PI (NN-PI) is designed which is more robust. In the presented work, both conventional gain scheduled PI and NN-PI are applied to validate the suggested voltage oriented control for power regulation. Simulation and experimental studies are presented to confirm the effective functionality of the system. © The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2014.