Theses and Dissertations Collection

An increasing number of wind farms acting as power plants are connected directly to power transmission networks, supplanting conventional synchronous machine-based generation. The effect of these wind generators on the dynamic performance of the power system is becoming increasingly important as power swing rates increase with decreased system inertia. In this thesis, power swing blocking protection element operation is analyzed in context of large-scale penetration of Type 4 grid integrated wind turbine systems. The underlying converter controls for large Type 4 WTG plants are designed and integrated to 12-bus benchmark power system modeled using a Real Time Digital Simulator (RTDS). The dynamic response characteristics of the integrated wind generation systems are compared against synchronous generators during fault-contingencies by utilizing a distance protective relay model in RTDS to analyze the effective impedance seen by the relay during a power swing. Differences in the operation of the distance protection element are studied and an improved protection element is designed to ensure correct operation of the relays. The results for fault contingencies with WTG’s demonstrated the effectiveness of the protection scheme.