Coordinated reactive power management in power networks with wind turbines and FACTS devices

Reactive power management is a critical issue when dealing with the planning and operation of power networks with high wind energy penetration. This paper is intended to introduce a coordinated Reactive Power Planning strategy among Doubly-Fed Induction Generator (DFIG) variable speed wind turbines and Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS) devices. According to this strategy, the reactive power capability from DFIG wind turbines is obtained and the limitations on deliverable power are deduced for each operation point. Furthermore, instead of using the reactive power limit as it is traditionally done, the reactive power injection from Static Var Compensator (SVC) is related to the existing physical limits of the control variables. The optimization strategy is based on genetic algorithms and includes directly in its formulation both the reactive power capability from wind turbines and the reactive power injection from SVC units. An existing 140-bus power system is used to validate the performance and effectiveness of the proposed method. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.