Reactive power planning for wind power plant interconnections

Modern wind plants have grown in capacity into facilities that can no longer be ignored in transmission planning studies. The most easily developed wind sites, those with an attractive wind resource in close proximity to stiff transmission system interconnections, are generally the first to be developed. Thus, a trend towards greater reactive power planning challenges with each successive wind project has been established. This paper provides an overview of the unique aspects of wind power generation that the transmission planner and wind project developer must consider to provide adequate reactive power capacity for operational reliability both inside the wind plant and in the neighboring transmission system. These aspects will be contrasted to the planning process for conventional generation sources in both a technological and a regulatory sense. Consideration will be given to both steady-state and dynamic reactive power needs.