Comparative Study of Wind Farm Stabilization using DFIG and STATCOM under grid requirements

Grid codes require taking into account the reactive power of the wind farm in order to contribute to the network stability, thus operating the wind farm as active compensator devices. This chapter presents a comparative study of stabilizing a wind farm using DFIGs or using a static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) during wind speed change and grid fault. Simulation results show that the wind farm could be effectively stabilized with both systems, but at a lower cost with the DFIGs system, because it can provide reactive power through its frequency converters without an external reactive power compensation unit like the STATCOM system, and at the same time generate power to the grid.