Wind turbine manufacturers observation regarding reactive power support and control requirements

Abstract

With the increase of power generated by wind power plants, network operators have placed steady-state and dynamic reactive power requirements at their grid connection point in several EU member states. This has forced wind turbine manufacturers to invest in upgrade of their technology and power plant owners and developers to invest in external compensation devices, adding to overall project costs. With the introduction of EU regulation Network Code Requirements for Generators (NC RfG) in 2016, it is expected that many countries (national implementation) will implement higher than currently required reactive power requirements accordingly to the new EU framework. The purpose of this study is to discuss the reactive power requirements and to investigate the reactive power support actually provided by wind power plants to date. SCADA data from a number of operational sites are analysed with regards to their actual reactive production utilising different control modes and to compare the given reactive power support with the requirements defined by the limits within the NC RfG. At the end of this study, a derived proposal for steady-state reactive power needs and dynamic power needs are discussed, therefore a minimum technical reactive power provision required is derived based on the current utilisation.