Prediction of flicker produced by wind turbines

Electrical flicker is a measure of voltage variations which may cause disturbances to consumers. Flicker is caused by both generators and loads connected to the network. This paper discusses the various issues which affect electrical flicker from wind turbines, and describes the development of a software tool capable of predicting, at the design stage, the flicker which would be produced by a wind turbine, or by a wind farm of similar turbines, on a particular network. The paper describes the modelling of the physical dynamics of the wind turbine and the turbulence in the wind which drives it, the electrical dynamics of the generator, and the network itself with various types of embedded consumer loads. Measurements carried out on two different 1 MW wind turbines have been used to validate the models.