Voltage quality control of a 1MW wave farm connected to weak, rural electricity networks

This paper describes a wave-to-wire model of an array of wave energy converters (WECs) developed in MATLAB/Simulink. The model has been used to study the effects of connecting a 1MW wave farm to a weak, rural electricity network. Voltage quality issues are examined and methods by which these impacts can be mitigated are discussed. The operation of the wave farm using four different controllers used for improving the voltage quality is compared. The control methods tested are: constant voltage operation, constant power factor operation, On Load Tap Changing Transformer (OLTC) operation, automatic voltage and power factor controller (AVPFC) operation and fuzzy logic power factor controller operation. The applicability of these control methods for three different sea states - highly, moderately and weakly energetic, is analysed. The pros and cons of using these methods are examined. Prospects for further work are identified and discussed.