Effect of Reactive Power Characteristic of Offshore Wind Power Plant on Low-Frequency Stability

Abstract

Oscillation phenomena of offshore wind power plant (OWPP) in a wide frequency range can be caused due to impedance interactions between grid-connected inverters (GCIs) and transmission cables. In this article, impedance model of GCI with outer power control loop, inner current control loop and phase-locked loop is first established in dq reference frame. The correctness is validated by frequency scanning method. Then, the effects of active and reactive power/current references on dq impedance characteristics of GCI with/without consideration of power control loop are investigated using complex space vectors and complex transfer functions. Furthermore, RLC circuit model of transmission cable considering frequency-dependent characteristics is also established for dq-domain IBSC. On the basis of them, it's found that low-frequency oscillation phenomena of OWPP under power control mode may occur if active power reference exceeds a certain threshold value, which can be mitigated by injecting a certain amount of negative reactive power. Impacts of PLL parameters, length of transmission cable and number of paralleled GCIs on required negative reactive power for low-frequency stabilization are further investigated. Both Matlab/Simulink-based simulation and OPAL-RT-based real-time verification are implemented in an OWPP with four permanent magnet synchronous generators to validate the correctness of the reactive power characteristic analysis results and the feasibility of mitigating low-frequency oscillation phenomena by negative reactive power injection.