Coordinated voltage control of renewable energy power plants in weak sending-end power grid

Abstract

The utilization of renewable energy in sending-end power grids is increasing rapidly, which brings difficulties to voltage control. This paper proposes a coordinated voltage control strategy based on model predictive control (MPC) for the renewable energy power plants of wind and solar power connected to a weak sending-end power grid (WSPG). Wind turbine generators (WTGs), photovoltaic arrays (PVAs), and a static synchronous compensator are coordinated to maintain voltage within a feasible range during operation. This results in the full use of the reactive power capability of WTGs and PVAs. In addition, the impact of the active power outputs of WTGs and PVAs on voltage control are considered because of the high R/X ratio of a collector system. An analytical method is used for calculating sensitivity coefficients to improve computation efficiency. A renewable energy power plant with 80 WTGs and 20 PVAs connected to a WSPG is used to verify the proposed voltage control strategy. Case studies show that the coordinated voltage control strategy can achieve good voltage control performance, which improves the voltage quality of the entire power plant.