Analysis of Power Quality Improvement Techniques Applied to Grid-connected Wind Power Plants

In the current transition of power industry from non-renewable generation toward renewable-based generation, wind energy is experiencing the highest penetration among the other renewable sources. Owing to low cost and abundant availability, wind energy generation has become a promising option to address the demand of cheap and clean energy. However, the integration of diverse type of Wind Power Plants (WPP) to the existing utility grids may bring forward multiple Power Quality (PQ) challenges such as harmonics, voltage sag/swell, voltage and power imbalances, low power factor, to name but a few. To address these issues researchers have proposed various PQ compensating devices over the years which have been updated in direct proportion to fast growing advancement in the design, control and operation of wind integrated power systems. This paper essentially aims to explain and classify different PQ issues and proposed improvement techniques on the bases of their applications, configurations, capabilities, advantages, and implementation cost in detail, which can provide a base information to the researchers working in this field. Moreover, simulations have been performed to demonstrate the performance of STATCOM in enhancing the voltage of grid-connected wind power plants.