Reactive power control of wind turbines

The penetration of wind power in the global electrical energy generation has been increasing over the last two decades. This makes it reasonable for wind power plants to participate in the control actions and ancillary services of the energy system. This paper investigates those possibilities of (“D” type) wind generators with full-scale power electronic converters primarily in connection with reactive power generation. The fact that wind power plants form distributed generation (DG) is often an advantage in contrast with conventional solutions. E.g. in many cases it only requires insignificant modifications of the converters to provide reactive power control and its transient control capability far surpasses the traditional ones. The aim of the paper is to give an overview of the possibilities, limits, pros and cons of the reactive power control of wind turbines.