Control and operation of wind turbine converters during faults in an offshore wind power plant grid with VSC-HVDC connection

Abstract

Voltage source converter (VSC) based high voltage dc (HVDC) transmission is an attractive technique for large offshore wind power plants, especially when long cable transmission is required for connection to the onshore grid. New multi-MW wind turbines are likely to be equipped with full scale converters to meet the stringent grid code requirements. In such a scenario, the offshore grid is terminated to the power electronic converters on all the ends. This paper presents a control scheme for the synchronization and control of the grid side converters (GSC) of the wind turbine generators (WTG). Current limit control enables the GSC to sustain the fault currents during short circuits in the offshore wind collector system grid. However, power transmission is affected, and the fault has to be isolated. It can be resynchronized after the fault has been cleared and the breaker reclosed. Healthy WTG converters can remain connected. The scheme is demonstrated through PSCAD/EMTDC simulation.