Analyzing Impacts of FACTS Devices in Dealing with Short-Term and Long-Term Wind Turbine Faults

More than one hundred countries are using wind energy due to their easy implementation, cheap energy, and high energy efficiency. Implementation of FACTS devices in Wind Energy Conversion Systems (WECS) has been dramatically improved due to cooperative and accurate performance of FACTS devices. However, dealing with wind turbine faults promptly is crucial. Short-term and long-term faults may have excessive voltage changes and inconstant active and reactive power injection into transmission line. In this paper, robustness and flexibility of SSSC, STATCOM, and UPFC FACTS devices connecting to a 9 MW SCIG-based wind farm under different time-domain fault conditions is investigated. Variety of system scenarios under fault conditions are surveyed in order to find the best Fault Ride Through (FRT) scheme for the system. To carry out this study, same rating and capacity is considered for all three FACTS devices which are employed at the grid-connected point of WECS to mitigate FRT problem. Moreover, the best compromised control mode of FACTS devices is sought by a power flow analysis. Additionally, to obtain a more perceivable view over the technical issues related to the voltage sag support, performance of FACTS devices is analyzed and compared with each other through the paper and at the final stage. A complete digital simulation of the system is executed in the MATLAB/SIMULINK environment and the results are presented to authenticate the performance of devices.