Power Management Approach to Minimize Battery Capacity in Wind Energy Conversion Systems

In a wind-battery hybrid power system, minimal battery capacity is a crucial requirement to achieve economic operation. In this paper, an optimal power control strategy based on a first-order low-pass filter is proposed to minimize the battery capacity by adjusting the filter smoothing time constant. We demonstrate the mathematical relationship between the filter smoothing time constant and the fluctuation mitigation requirement during one sampling time, so the optimal filter smoothing time constant can be easily computed to minimize the battery capacity. Moreover, an online short-term power control is also considered to maintain the battery state of charge within a safe range and to regulate the battery power below its rating. The proposed power management approach is simple and easy to implement. In order to verify the effective features of the proposed power management approach, a case study is carried out along with some experimental verification.