MARINET Infrastructure Access Report - Synthetic inertia from wind generation – power electronic converter capabilities

Extensive research has been conducted on the provision of frequency support from variable-speed wind turbines employing different methodologies. However, in addition to the impacts on network operation, provision of short-term frequency support has implications on the turbines themselves. In essence, the control implementation to deliver the ‘synthetic inertia’ response required for the power system will introduce additional and significant torque demands on the turbine. In this research context, the main goal of this project is to observe experimentally and to assess the impact of different control loops for provision of synthetic inertia in the Doubly-fed Induction Generator (DFIG), and Fully-rated converter (FRC) power electronic converters. The work to be conducted in this project has been organised over 6 weeks of effective work in the lab at SINTEF. This is an Interim Report that covers the activities performed and results achieved during the second two-week visit. During these two weeks, a small scale power system which is able to demonstrate typical load change-frequency variation characteristic is set up as the test rig for DFIG frequency support controller. Two different types of . The DFIG and network models, which enable to represent the inertia response of the DFIG have been significantly improved and made compatible with the Opal-RT to be tested on the real machine.