Control of large scale wind power plants

Growing percentages of wind power penetration translate to more demanding requirements from grid codes; generally speaking, the replacement of traditional generation by large wind power plants requires more control capabilities as we are used in the past. Thus, wind energy technology has to be adapted to fulfill such requirements. Basically, when moving from small “wind parks” to wind power plants it is important to think in terms of plant control, and not anymore in terms of wind turbines individually producing energy without control coordination (or very poor). New wind power plants´ turbine technologies can and should deliver control with features and performance that are equivalent or improved compared to other bulk power plant technologies, however, at this stage not only the wind turbine technology is important but also the plant control. With a large number of distributed controllable sources of active and reactive power, plant level control involves advanced dispatching and fast communication, two areas that have recently progressed in the application of wind power plant control. This paper presents a summary and analysis of wind power plant control topologies, pointing out the system challenges in regards to control and integration.