Fault Response of a DFIG-based offshore wind power plant taking into account the wake effect

In order to meet the low voltage ride-through requirement in a grid code, a wind power plant (WPP) has to stay connected to a grid, supporting the voltage recovery for a grid fault. To do this, a plant-level controller as well as a wind generator (WG) controller is essential. The dynamic response of a WPP should be analyzed in order to design a plant-level controller. The dynamic response of a WPP for a grid fault is the collective response of all WGs, which depends on the wind speed approaching the WG. Thus, the dynamic response of a WPP should be analyzed by taking the wake effect into consideration, because different wind speeds at WGs will result in different responses of the WPP. This paper analyzes the response of a doubly fed induction generator (DFIG)-based offshore WPP with a grid fault taking into account the wake effect. To obtain the approaching wind speed of a WG in a WPP, we considered the cumulative impact of multiple shadowing and the effect of the wind direction. The voltage, reactive power, and active power at the point of common coupling of a 100 MW DFIG-based offshore WPP were analyzed during and after a grid fault under various wind and fault conditions using an EMTP-RV simulator. The results clearly demonstrate that not considering the wake effect leads to significantly different results, particularly for the reactive power and active power, which could potentially lead to incorrect conclusions and / or control schemes for a WPP.