Evaluation of reactive power compensations for the phase I of Paraguaná wind based on system voltages

The Phase I of Paraguaná wind farm is designed to provide 32.4 MW to the Paraguaná power system using 24 MADE AE-61 wind turbines. This generation unit uses single cage induction generator which requires reactive power support during the power production. Three type of dynamic reactive power compensation are evaluated in this paper: Mechanically-switch shunt capacitor, static var compensator and static synchronous compensator (STATCOM). Time-domain simulations using DIgSILENT^® PowerFactory™ over the Paraguaná power system are used to evaluate the dynamic behavior of bus voltages during and after a three-phase fault. Results demonstrate STATCOM provides the best reactive power support to the network to compensate the large amount of reactive power absorbed by the wind turbine after fault and thus they considerably improve the recovery of system voltages.