The voltage control for reactive power management by decentralized wind farms

Wind energy is clean, affordable, efficient and effectively infinite. Therefore, it is the biggest player in energy transition arena and penetration of it in power systems is increasing. The high penetration of wind farms (WFs) causes problems because wind itself is variable and uncertain. Moreover, it results in complicated effects on power flows and voltages. Grid operators are supposed to develop Grid Codes for WFs considering a number of parameters to overcome the difficulties. WFs have to operate the power system voltage continuously in normal operational conditions for a proper reactive power management (RPM) according to Grid Codes. This paper presents RPM using linearly decreasing Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) to define reference voltages of decentralized WFs with full reactive power capability. It is also proved that the reference voltages of decentralized WFs are important to enhance reactive power balance of a typical German 110 kV-sub-transmission grid.