Operation of MOV-protected series compensator with wind power during faults

Metal oxide varistor (MOV) is an electrical device that is connected in parallel with a transmission line series compensator to protect it against overvoltage during faults. The nonlinearity of this device adds complexity to the evaluation of system performance especially during unsymmetrical faults. The variability of wind energy introduces additional complexity to the analysis of the power system performance during faults. This paper studies the impact of the intermittent wind power generation on the operation of MOV during faults. For the purpose of simulation, an equivalent wind farm model is proposed to generate a wind generation profile using wind farm generation from California independent system operator (ISO) as a guide for wind power variation to perform the study. The IEEE 12-bus test system is modified to include MOV-protected series capacitor and the equivalent wind farm model. The modified test system is simulated in the MATLAB/Simulink environment. The study has been achieved on the modified test system considering three phase and single line to ground (SLG) faults near the terminal of the series compensated line to show the effect of wind variation on the MOV operation.