Power smoothing and power ramp control for wind energy using energy storage

Due to randomness of wind speed, the wind farm output power varies drastically. These fluctuations make undesirable effects on the voltage, frequency, and transient stability of the utility grid. In this paper, two types of energy storage devices are integrated with a wind farm to support the short-term shortcomings of wind energy. The support specifically improves power ramp rate control and power smoothing. The utilized energy storages devices are zinc bromide flow battery and Lithium-Ion Capacitors (LIC). The actual models of the battery and ultracapacitor, which are derived from testing, are used in this study. The power data for the wind farm and load are actual data from a local power system. The analysis shows that considerable improvements can be made to shape the output power of the farm using the energy storage systems.