A robust SMES controller strategy for mitigating power and voltage fluctuations of grid-connected hybrid PV–wind generation systems

Abstract

Recently, hybrid generation systems (HGSs) are considered to be the optimal solution for supplying remote areas with the required electrical power. HGSs contain two or more renewable energy sources (RESs), such as wind power generators (WPGs), photovoltaic (PV) generation systems and the energy of the tides. Due to the intermittent nature of RESs, power and voltage fluctuations have appeared accordingly at the connection point with the utility power grid. Hence, energy storage technologies can play an effective role in mitigating power and voltage fluctuations caused by hybrid PV–wind generation systems. This paper proposes a robust control strategy for superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) combined with HGS. Fuzzy logic control (FLC) is used to control the chopper circuit of SMES in order to charge/discharge the active power from/to HGS. The proposed FLC strategy considers the fluctuations due to PV and wind power generation systems and the random load power variation. SMES with the proposed FLC method can effectively mitigate the fluctuation of active and reactive powers transfer between HGS and grid, and it can also regulate the voltage profile of the common connection point of SMES with HGS. Moreover, the system line power loss is clearly reduced by using the SMES system. The complete power system including loads is built in MATLAB/Simulink platform. The simulation results indicate that the proposed FLC–SMES can smooth both power and voltage fluctuations due to uncertain climate changes of PV and WPG systems.