Wind Power Plant Model Validation Using Synchrophasor Measurements at the Point of Interconnection

A wind power plant (WPP) is different from a conventional power plant in the sense that a WPP may consist of hundreds of small (e.g., 1.5-MW) wind turbine generators (WTGs), whereas a conventional power plant may consist of one or several large generators. Common practice in power system planning to simulate a WPP is to use a single-turbine representation. However, it is important to realize that the response of a single-turbine representation is not the response of an individual turbine; instead, it represents the collective behavior of a WPP. In this paper, we present our experience in validating WPP from available measured data. We investigate the discrepancies between the simulation results and the actual measurement, and we examine the probable causes of these discrepancies. Finally, we offer methods to validate WPP dynamic model to better match the simulation result to the measured data. Understanding the nature of a WPP and the meaning of WPP equivalency is very important to determine the representation of a WPP.