Performance evaluation of conventional protection systems for wind farms

Wind farms are characterized with some unique features during their normal and faulty operating conditions. Different factors participate usually into these conditions such as the distributed generation concept, the own behavior of the induction generator, varying wind speed, ... etc. This, consequently, arises different challenges regarding the behavior of their protection and control schemes. In this paper, the performance of the conventional protection schemes (currently in use with wind farms) is thoroughly investigated. The aimed investigation study is carried out on a 225 MW wind farm in AL-Zaafarana-Egypt as a simulation example using MATLAB. The package represents an ideal candidate for dynamic simulation purposes with its own highly performance graphical interface and built-in libraries. The major effective factors that may influence the fault characteristics are considered such as fault position, fault type, fault resistance and pre-fault loading. This explores the performance of wind farms during faulty conditions honestly. It also visualizes the performance of their protection elements and assists enhancing their performance in the future.