A review of multiphase energy conversion in wind power generation

Abstract As an important renewable energy source, the scale of wind energy utilization is growing rapidly worldwide in recent decades. The increasing capacity of both onshore and offshore wind power generation calls for higher requirements for the power level and reliability of generators and converters. Compared to the traditional three-phase wind power generation, multiphase wind power generation systems have obvious advantages in low-voltage high-power operation, enhanced fault-tolerant ability and increased degrees of control freedom, which help them gaining increasing popularity in modern wind power generation. This paper presents an overview on the multiphase energy conversion of wind power generation and introduces the pertinent technology advances, including the design of multiphase wind turbine generators, multiphase converter topologies, modeling and control of multiphase generators. Besides, this paper offers prospects of novel solutions brought by the redundant control freedom in multiphase system to cope with some difficult technical problems, such as Common-Mode Voltage (CMV) suppression, Low Voltage Ride Through (LVRT), and vibration & noise reduction.