Mitigation of subsynchronous resonance in a series-compensated wind farm using FACTS controllers

The rapid growth of wind power systems worldwide will likely see the integration of large wind farms with electrical networks that are series compensated for ensuring stable transmission of bulk power. This may potentially lead to subsynchronous-resonance (SSR) issues. Although SSR is a well-understood phenomenon that can be mitigated with flexible ac transmission system (FACTS) devices, scant information is available on the SSR problem in a series-compensated wind farm. This paper reports the potential occurrence and mitigation of SSR caused by an induction-generator (IG) effect as well as torsional interactions, in a series-compensated wind farm. SSR suppression is achieved as an additional advantage of FACTS controllers which may already be installed in the power system for achieving other objectives. In this study, a wind farm employing a self-excited induction generator is connected to the grid through a series-compensated line. A static var compensator (SVC) with a simple voltage regulator is first employed at the IG terminal in addition to the fixed shunt capacitor for dynamic reactive power support. The same SVC is shown to effectively damp SSR when equipped with an SSR damping controller. Also, a thyristor-controlled series capacitor (TCSC) that is actually installed to increase the power transfer capability of the transmission line is also shown to damp subsynchronous oscillations when provided with closed-loop current control. While both FACTS controllers-the SVC and TCSC-can effectively mitigate SSR, the performance of TCSC is shown to be superior. Extensive simulations have been carried out using EMTDC/PSCAD to validate the performance of SVC and TCSC in damping SSR.