A Comprehensive Overview on Wind Power Integration to the Power Grid

Apart form the hydro-electricity, the wind power has emerged as the most promising renewable resource for its industrial technological base, and the experience and reliability attained in the last 20 years of operation of small and large systems worldwide. In spite of the phenomenal growth and development in the last decades, the wind turbines´ industry keeps moving forward in order to increase the efficiency and controllability of the wind turbines and to easy the integration to the power grid. This paper presents an overview on the changes the power systems are going through and discusses important aspects arising from the large scale penetration of wind energy into electrical power grid, as the challenges related to the transmission and distribution infra-structure, issues related to the balance, reserve and prediction of the wind power as well as the wind turbines fault ride-through capability. The wind power has caused many transformations in the power systems´ planning and operation strategies, grid codes reviews and in the energy market.