The Use of a Real-Time Simulator for Analysis of Power Grid Operation States with a Wind Turbine

Abstract

The main issue in this paper is the real-time simulator of a part of a power grid with a wind turbine. The simulator is constructed on the basis of a classic PC running under a classic operating system. The proposed solution is expected and desired by users who intend to manage power microgrids as separate (but not autonomous) areas of common national power systems. The main reason for the decreased interest in real-time simulators solutions built on the basis of PC is the simulation instability. The instability of the simulation is due to not keeping with accurate results when using small integration steps and loss of accuracy or loss of stability when using large integration steps. The second obstacle was due to the lack of a method for integrating differential equations, which gives accurate results with a large integration step. This is the scientific problem that is solved in this paper. A new solution is the use of a new method for integrating differential equations based on average voltage in the integration step (AVIS). This paper shows that the applied AVIS method, compared to other methods proposed in the literature (in the context of real-time simulators), allows to maintain simulation stability and accurate results with the use of large integration steps. A new (in the context of the application of the AVIS method) mathematical model of a power transformer is described in detail, taking into account the nonlinearity of the magnetization characteristics. This model, together with the new doubly-fed induction machine model (described in the authors’ previous article), was implemented in PC-based hardware. In this paper, we present the results of research on the operation states of such a developed real-time simulator over a long period (one week). In this way, the effectiveness of the operation of the real-time simulator proposed in the paper was proved.