IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 53, NO.
4, AUGUST 2006
Vector Control of Front-End Converters for
Variable-Speed Wind–Diesel Systems
Roberto Cárdenas, Member, IEEE, Rubén Peña, Member, IEEE, Marcelo Pérez, Jon Clare, Senior Member, IEEE,
Greg Asher, Senior Member, IEEE, and Fernando Vargas, Student Member, IEEE
Abstract—This paper presents a novel power-balance control
method for a wind–diesel generation feeding an isolated grid. The
system is based on a variable-speed wind energy conversion system
(WECS) connected to an ac load using a power converter. An
energy storage system (ESS), connected to the ac load using an
additional converter, is used to balance the power generated by the
WECS with the load. In this paper, the vector control systems for
both interfacing power converters are discussed; the control uses
the WECS converter to regulate the ac load voltage and the ESS
converter to regulate the power flow to achieve a power balance. A
small signal model is used to design the control systems. Finally,
the proposed control is implemented in a 2-kW experimental
prototype and the experimental results are fully analyzed and
discussed in the paper.
Index Terms—Diesel engines, pulsewidth-modulated (PWM)
power converters, wind-power generation.
I. I NTRODUCTION
V ARIABLE-SPEED operation of wind turbines has many
advantages that are well documented in the literature
[1]–[3]. Torque peaks in the gearbox and shafts are reduced,
the wind turbine can operate with maximum aerodynamic
efficiency and power fluctuations can be absorbed as inertial
energy in the blades. In some applications, the wind turbine
is augmented by an additional source, usually a diesel gener-
ator [4]–[7]. These generation schemes are called wind–diesel
systems.
In wind–diesel systems, wind speed variations may produce
not only power fluctuations but also frequent start/stop cycles
of the diesel engine in response to periods of unacceptably
low wind speed. Simulation results presented in [5] illustrated
than only 2 min of storage (i.e., to be able to supply the load
for 2 min without diesel generation) can reduce the number
of diesel starts from 30 per hour to two per hour, with a
consequent reduction in overall fuel consumption. Therefore,
in wind–diesel systems, an energy buffer is very important in
order to avoid unnecessary deterioration of the diesel engine.
Manuscript received December 29, 2004; revised May 16, 2005. Abstract
published on the Internet May 18, 2006. This work was supported by the
Chilean Government through Fondecyt Grant 1020721.
R. Cárdenas, R. Peña, M. Pérez, and F. Vargas are with the Electrical and
Electronics Engineering Department, University of Magallanes, Punta Arenas,
Chile (e-mail: rcd@ieee.org).
J. Clare and G. Asher are with the School of Electrical and Elec-
tronic Engineering, University of Nottingham, NG7 2RD Nottingham, U.K.
(e-mail: jon.clare@nottingham.ac.uk).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIE.2006.878321
0278-0046/$20.00 © 2006 IEEE
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1127
Power smoothing for wind–diesel system in which the wind
energy conversion system (WECS) and energy storage system
(ESS) shared a common dc bus was considered in [8] and [9].
This paper addresses a system in which the WECS and ESS
are connected to an isolated ac grid as depicted in Fig. 1. A
variable-speed WECS is used to supply electrical energy into
a stand-alone load. A power converter is used in the WECS
side, to control the electrical torque of the generator, driving
the wind turbine to the curve of maximum power capture for a
given wind speed. The control of the WECS electrical generator
and its associated power converter can be found in [1], [2], and
[10] and will not be repeated here.
Previous publications related to wind–diesel systems for
stand-alone or isolated ac grid systems mostly consider a fixed
speed wind turbine for the WECS [4]–[7] although the opera-
tion of variable-speed systems have been reported in [11]–[14].
In [11] and [12], simulation results of a wind–diesel system
based on a variable-speed wind turbine are presented in which
continuous operation of the diesel engine regulates the voltage
and frequency at the grid, and power balancing is achieved
by regulating the energy captured by the WECS using pitch
control. However, continuous operation of the diesel is not
desirable because of the high fuel consumption, while power
balancing through controlling the pitch angle of the blades
has relatively slow dynamics. In [13], a simulation study in-
vestigates a wind turbine and the diesel engine, both operat-
ing at variable speed for maximum wind energy capture and
optimal diesel fuel consumption; however, the paper does not
consider the control for power balancing, grid voltage, and
frequency regulation. Another simulation study [14] investi-
gates a variable-speed wind turbine connected to an isolated
ac grid with a power smoothing system. Scalar control is used
in the WECS front-end converter. This paper extends [14]
through a rigorous presentation of the dual vector control
schemes and its verification through experiment.
In this paper, the control of a variable-speed WECS and
an energy buffer are considered (see Fig. 1) for the operation
in a wind diesel system. Energy is stored and released from
the energy buffer, via an ESS and interfacing converter, to
match the power absorbed from the wind with the load power.
A flywheel or batteries are used for energy storing [15]. For
sustained periods of low wind power, the flywheel speed or
battery charge will drop below a threshold and the diesel
generator is started, synchronized and connected to the load.
When the flywheel speed or battery charge is above an upper
threshold, the surplus energy has to be dissipated using a
resistive load or the energy capture has to be reduced using
1128 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 53, NO. 4, AUGUST 2006

Fig. 1. Wind–diesel system with a variable-speed wind turbine.

pitch control of the blades. It is assumed throughout the paper

that the diesel generator is disconnected, since the main goal
of the ESS is to reduce to a minimum the need to operate the
diesel. It is assumed however that the diesel-generator set can be
synchronized to the grid voltage and switched on when the wind
energy, supplemented transiently by the ESS, becomes too low
to supply the load. When the diesel generation is connected the
grid voltage and frequency is then controlled by conventional
exciter and governor control.
This paper addresses the control systems for the two inter-
facing or “front-end” converters, shown in Fig. 1. The WECS
front-end converter is used to regulate the voltage and fre-
quency at the load. The electrical frequency is regulated using
vector control of the WECS front-end converter orientated in
a rotating axes system whose angular velocity is ωs . The ESS
front-end converter is used to balance the power by regulating
the dc-link voltage EG of the WECS converter to a constant
value (maintaining IG ≈ IW in Fig. 1). Both, the WECS and
the ESS, front-end converters are vector controlled to achieve
fast and decoupled control of the active and reactive power Fig. 2. Control system for the WECS front-end converter.
supplied to the grid/load.
The ESS machine-side converter (or the equivalent power
electronics associated to a battery bank) is controlled to regulate
the dc-link voltage EC (maintaining IC ≈ If in Fig. 1). The II. C ONTROL S YSTEMS FOR THE
regulation of the dc-link voltage EC , using the ESS machine- F RONT -E ND C ONVERTERS
side converter, has been discussed in [8] and [9], and details
A. Control of the WECS Front-End Converter
will not be given here.
This paper considers a balanced linear R–L grid load for ver- In this paper, the WECS front-end converter is used to regu-
ifying the basic idea of the control strategy. Under unbalanced late the frequency and voltage at the load. The vector control is
phase loading, negative sequence and zero sequence distortion based on a rotating axis system whose angular velocity ωs is set
may occur creating unbalanced phase voltages with unequal in the controller and defines the electrical frequency at the load.
phase shifts, together with 2ωs oscillations in the current and Fig. 2 shows the vector control structure of the WECS front-end
voltage d−q components. For sourcing power to unbalanced converter. The load is represented as a series resistor RL and
loads, four-leg WECS and/or ESS converters may be used in inductor LL . A second-order LC filter is used to reduce the load
which the fourth leg connects to the load neutral [16], [17]. voltage harmonics; to avoid resonance problems, the resonance
Nonlinear loads are normally handled through filtering. The frequency of the filter is set to more than ten times the line fre-
application of the proposed control system to unbalanced and/or quency and less than one half of the switching frequency [18].
nonlinear loads, is considered outside the scope of this paper. The design of the voltage control loop has to consider that
Section II discusses the vector control system used in this the load is varying over a wide range, and that the ESS front-
paper. Section III discusses the small signal model, and in end converter is connected to the load. The small-signal model
Section IV, the experimental results, obtained from a 2-kW used to design the voltage control system, and the interaction
experimental prototype, are presented and discussed. between both front-end converters, are discussed in Section III.

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CÁRDENAS et al.: VECTOR CONTROL OF FRONT-END CONVERTERS FOR WIND–DIESEL SYSTEMS 1129

III. S MALL -S IGNAL M ODEL

A. Small-Signal Model for a Resistive Load
Assuming that the power factor of the RL −LL load is close
to unity, the reactive power supplied by the front-end converter
is negligible, i.e., the quadrature components iqG , iqC of the
WECS and ESS front-end converters are both zero. Considering
a constant RL , the d−q equations for the ac side of Fig. 1 are

idG + idC = idL (2)

vd idG
IW ≈ (3)
EG
vd = idL RL (4)

where idG is the direct component of the current supplied by

the WECS front-end converter, idC is the direct component of
the current supplied by the ESS front-end converter, and vd ,
idL are the direct component of the load voltage and current,
respectively. The dc-link voltage EG is obtained as

Fig. 3. Control of the ESS front-end converter. IG − IW

EG = (5)
sCG
The current control loops are standard PI [19] and have been
designed for a closed-loop natural frequency of ≈ 70 Hz. where CG is the WECS converter’s dc-link capacitance. Using
(1)–(5), the control diagram of Fig. 4(a) is obtained. In Fig. 4,
B. Control of the ESS Front-End Converter GcE (s) is the dc-link voltage controller shown in Fig. 3 and
GcV (s) is the controller of the ac load voltage. The symbols
The power captured by the wind turbine may be represented π and ÷ represent multiplication and division, respectively.
by IG in Fig. 1, while the power supplied by the WECS to the For simplicity, the current control loop dynamics have been
rest of the system may be represented by IW . If the generation neglected in Fig. 4.
and the load are balanced, then IG ≈ IW and the ESS does The control systems of Fig. 4 are nonlinear with coupling
nothing. When the generation and the load are not balanced, between the dc-link voltage control loop and the load voltage
the ESS supplies (or absorbs) energy to maintain the balance in control loop. Linearizing around a quiescent point (EG0 , vd0 ,
IG and IW . idL0 , IG0 , IW 0 ) yields
The ESS front-end converter is vector controlled using a d−q
frame orientated along the load voltage vd , as shown in Fig. 3.
∆idG = − ∆idC (6)
The relevant equations are
∆vd idG0 + ∆idG vd0 vd0 idG0
didC ∆IW = − 2 ∆EG (7)
vdp = idC Rf + Lf − iqC ωe Lf + vd EG0 EG0
dt
∆IG − ∆IW
diqC ∆EG = . (8)
vqp = iqC Rf + Lf + idC ωe Lf (1) sCG
dt
where vdp , vqp are the d−q voltages at the ESS front-end During normal operation, the small signal model is simplified
converter, idC , iqC are the d−q components of the “compen- by considering that the variation in ∆EG , ∆vd are small
sating” current iC to/from the ESS (see Fig. 1), vd is the compared to the variation in the currents. Therefore
load voltage, and Rf , Lf are the equivalent resistance and
inductance between the ESS front-end converter and the load. vd0 idG0 vd0 idG0
∆idG  ∆vd − 2 ∆EG . (9)
Power balance is achieved by regulating the WECS con- EG0 EG0 EG0
verter’s dc-link voltage EG . When the dc-link voltage de-
creases, the idC component of the ESS front-end converter Using (6)–(9), the small-signal model shown in Fig. 4(b) is
(which represents real power flow) is controlled to supply obtained. In the control system of Fig. 4(b), there is still some
energy into the system. Conversely, if EG increases, idC is coupling between the dc-link voltage control loop and the load
controlled to absorb energy from the system. voltage control loop. However, because of the high inertia of
The design of the dc-link voltage (EG ) controller is dis- wind turbines [1], [2], [20], the current idC will vary slowly
cussed in Section III. For the ESS front-end converter, the compared with the natural frequency of the load voltage control
current control loops have been designed for a natural fre- loop. Therefore, for the dc-link voltage control system the load
quency of about 70 Hz. voltage is considered almost constant and, using (6), the open

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1130 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 53, NO. 4, AUGUST 2006

B. Control System Operation Considering a

Low-Power-Factor Load
The transfer function (12) is obtained considering a resistive
load. For the general series RL −LL case, the transfer function
of the load and filter capacitance is obtained as



vd (s + RL /LL ) idG
≈ 2
. (13)
vq Cf (s + (RL /LL )s + 1/(LL Cf )) iqG

In (13), the cross coupling terms between the d and q axes

have been neglected and vd , vq are the d−q components of the
voltage. If the load has a near-unity power factor, a PI controller
on each axis can be used to control the load voltage. However, if
the power factor is low, the zero of (13) may be too close to the
PI controller integrator and a slow dynamic response will result.
Therefore, a PI controller may be not appropriate to regulate the
voltage for loads with a very low power factor.
The approach used in this paper is to design the load voltage
controllers of Fig. 4(b) using a nominal load RL0 and then to
test the response over the desired load range. Using this ap-
proach, we have designed and experimentally tested the control
system for loads between 2% and 100% of the nominal value
and power factors > 0.85. For more demanding conditions, a
more sophisticated approach may be needed. However, such
consideration is beyond the scope of this paper.

IV. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS

Fig. 4. Block diagram for the proposed control system. (a) Control system
proposed. (b) Small signal model of the control system proposed. Fig. 5 shows the experimental system implementing that of
Fig. 1. The diesel generator has been excluded, since the control
philosophy of the paper is not used when the diesel generator is
loop transfer function ∆EG /∆idC is obtained as switched in. The control structures were implemented on a DSP
board based on a TMS320C31 processor. Two vector-controlled
∆EG vd0 2-kW pulsewidth-modulation (PWM) inverters with a switch-
≈ ∗ . (10)
∆idC sCG EG ing frequency of 1 kHz are used. A 1-kHz chopper-based
system is used to emulate the variable-speed wind turbine,
Using (10), a PI controller [for GcE (s)] can be designed for supplying a current profile IG to the WECS dc link capacitors;
a bandwidth of about 4 Hz. The dc-link voltage controller can ∗
this profile for the demand current IG is sent from the host PC
be compensated against variation in the term vd /EG using a to the DSP board. Four voltage transducers are used to measure
variable gain (see Fig. 3). the load voltage, and the dc-link voltages EG and EC . Four
The open loop transfer function for the load voltage control current transducers are used to measure the currents supplied
loop can also be obtained from Fig. 4(b) as by the front-end converters. An additional current transducer
is used in the chopper-based IG control system. The front-
∆vd end converters are connected to the load using 12-mH 0.3-Ω
≈ RL . (11)
∆idG filter inductances. The capacitor bank is selected for a resonant
frequency of approximately 500 Hz. In a real application, a
Considering the filter capacitance, and neglecting the cross flywheel system or a battery bank is connected to the ESS dc
coupling between the d and q axes, the open loop transfer link capacitors. In the experimental system considered here,
function ∆vd /∆idG is the battery bank is replaced by an additional chopper-based
system. This is used to regulate the voltage in the ESS dc
∆vd RL link capacitors, allowing bidirectional power flow in the ESS
≈ (12)
∆idG 1 + sRL Cf front-end converter. More information about the parameters of
the experimental system is presented in the Appendix. Unless
where Cf is the filter capacitance. Using (12), a PI controller otherwise stated, all experimental tests are carried out with the
[for GcV (s)] can be designed for the operation of the load demand current i∗qC = 0; all reactive power is supplied from the
voltage control loop. WECS front-end converter.

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CÁRDENAS et al.: VECTOR CONTROL OF FRONT-END CONVERTERS FOR WIND–DIESEL SYSTEMS 1131

Fig. 5. Experimental system.

Fig. 6. Control system performance for a wind gust. (a) Current profile corresponding to a wind gust. (b) Current profile at the input of the system. (c) Current
supplied by the WECS front-end converter and corresponding load voltage. (d) Current supplied by the ESS front-end converter and corresponding dc-link voltage.

A current profile corresponding to a typical wind gust is
shown in Fig. 6(a). A succession of these is supplied to the
WECS dc-link capacitors [as shown in Fig. 6(b)]. With a
∗
demand voltage EG of 500 V, and RL chosen for a load power
of ≈ 720 W, Fig. 6(c) shows the direct component of the load
voltage vd and the current idG . As expected, the shape of the
current waveform is similar to that of the IG current. Fig. 6(d)
shows idC supplied by the ESS front-end converter. The ESS
supplies a current between ≈ 1 and 5 A. Note that idG + idC
is approximately 5 A (the load current) for the entire duration
of the test corresponding to Fig. 6. The regulation of the load
voltage vd and dc-link voltage EG is good. The dc-link voltage
variations are below ±5 V, (about 1% of the reference voltage).
For the load voltage, the voltage variations are also below
±5 V (about 4.5% of the reference load voltage).
The system of Fig. 1 is also tested using a current profile
obtained from a real wind profile lasting about 60 s. Fig. 7
a shows the wind profile and its corresponding current IG ,
the latter obtained by simulating a variable-speed wind turbine
with an artificially zero inertia and applying the wind profile of

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1132
Fig. 7. Control system performance considering a wind profile. (a) Wind profile and corresponding current profile. (b) Current supplied by the WECS front-end
converter and load voltage corresponding to Fig. 7(a). (c) Current supplied by the ESS front-end converter and dc-link voltage corresponding to Fig. 7(a).
Fig. 7(a). Because wind turbines normally have large inertia,
they behave like a low-pass filter [9], [20], [21], filtering
out much of the wind turbulence. If the wind turbine has
no inertia, the wind speed fluctuations are reflected on the
generator output power. This represents a worst case condition
for power smoothing since the high frequency content of IG
is maximized and the natural smoothing normally associated
with the turbine inertia is minimized. The current profile of
Fig. 7(a) has a peak current of 3.5 A with an average value I¯G
of 1.9 A and a dispersion coefficient σIG of 0.76 A. The mean
turbulence intensity value, defined as σIG /I¯G , is about 40%.
This is a very high value of turbulence for a variable-speed
wind turbines [20], [21] and represents a worst case for test-
ing purposes.
Fig. 7(b) shows idG of the WECS front-end converter and the
load voltage vd . The load is ≈ 720 W (about 35% of nominal)
for t < 10 s. At t = 10 s, the load is stepped to ≈ 1900 W (95%
nominal). After 50 s, the load is stepped again to 720 V. The
shape of the idG is identical to that of the current IG , with a
small disturbance at the sudden load variations. The dip and the
overshoot on the vd voltage are ≈ 17 V. The response of the
voltage controller is quite good considering the magnitude of
the load step, and also considering that the control loops are not
decoupled for fast load changes (see Fig. 4). When the load is
fixed, there is small variation in the voltage vd produced by the
IG current fluctuations.
Fig. 7(c) shows the dc-link voltage EG and the direct compo-
nent idC of the current supplied by the ESS front-end converter.
Before the load step, the ESS front-end converter is absorbing
energy from the system (idC < 0). After the load step, the
additional load power is supplied from the ESS converter and
the current idC changes from 0 to ≈ 3 A. When the load is
disconnected, the current idC is again reduced to a low value.
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 53, NO. 4, AUGUST 2006
Notice that at the end of the current profile, because of the low
load, the ESS front-end converter is again absorbing energy
from the system.
Fig. 7(c) shows also the dc-link voltage EG , when the load
is connected and disconnected. The dip and the overshoot are
less than 15 V (3% of the nominal voltage). During application
of the current profile, there is also a small variation of ±3 V
in the dc-link voltage EG . Given the high turbulence of the IG
current profile used, this variation is very small and shows the
high performance of the proposed control system.
In order to test the robustness of the control method, its
performance is tested using a load with a low pf of 0.53
(20 Ω in series with 100 mH—both per phase). The shape of
the current profile used in the experimental tests is identical to
that of Fig. 7(a), but with an average value I¯G of approximately
1.3 A.
Fig. 8(a) shows the d−q currents supplied by the ESS and
WECS converters. For this test, the ESS front-end is absorbing
much of the energy supplied from the WECS. This is because
the load has a low-power factor and there is a large voltage
drop in the load inductance. Fig. 8(b) shows the dc-link voltage
EG and the load voltage vd . The performance of the control
system is good even for this low-power-factor load. There
is some increase in the switching noise and the oscillation
magnitude has increased slightly respect to the performance
of Fig. 7. Nevertheless, the experimental test of Fig. 8 shows
the robustness of the proposed control system. Even when the
power factor is relatively low, the performance obtained from
the control system is still quite good.
Fig. 9 shows the load voltage and line currents from both
front-end converters. Fig. 9(a) shows the currents and voltage
for a 1-kW load, with constant IG ≈ 1.5 A. Because the power
supplied from the WECS is not sufficient for the load, the ESS
CÁRDENAS et al.: VECTOR CONTROL OF FRONT-END CONVERTERS FOR WIND–DIESEL SYSTEMS
Fig. 8. Control system performance considering a load with low power factor.
(a) d−q components of the front-end converters for a low-power-factor load.
(b) Load voltage and dc-link voltage corresponding to Fig. 8(a).
Fig. 9. Voltage and currents for steady-state operation. (a) Load voltage and
current for a 1-kW load. (b) Load voltage and currents for a 100-W load.
is supplying energy to the load. Therefore, iaG and iaC are in
phase with the phase voltage va .
Fig. 9(b) shows the voltage and currents (for identical input
current) when the system load is reduced to ≈ 100 W. Because
of the reduced load, most of the WECS energy is absorbed
by the ESS front-end converter. Therefore, iaC in Fig. 9(b)
is 180◦ out of phase respect to va . The experimental results
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1133
Fig. 10. Control system operation for a step change in the input. (a) Load
voltage and WECS currents for a step change in IG . (b) DC-link voltage and
ESS current for a step change in IG .
of Fig. 9 also show that, even for wide variations in the load
power, the harmonics content in the voltage and current are
acceptable.
The robustness of the proposed control system has also been
tested by applying step changes in the input current IG . For a
load power of ≈ 700 W, the input current is varied between
≈ 0 and 3.5 A, equivalent to an input power step of 1750 W.
The experimental results are shown in Fig. 10. Fig. 10(a) shows
the load voltage and idG , iqG of the WECS. As expected there
is a sudden change in idG from ≈ 0 A to 5 A (there is also a
small change in the iqG current) when the input power step is
applied. The current idG changes again from ≈ 5 A to 0 A when
the input power step is disconnected. For the experimental test
of Fig. 10(a), the dip and the overshoot in the load voltage are
≈ 25 V and 35 V, respectively, which is acceptable consid-
ering the magnitude of the power step applied to the system.
Fig. 10(b) shows the idC component of the ESS converter.
Before the input power step, the ESS front-end converter is
supplying most of the load power. When IG changes to 3.5 A,
the ESS front-end converter absorbs the surplus energy from the
system. Notice in Fig. 10(b) that the dip and the overshoot in the
dc-link voltage are relatively small considering the magnitude
of the power step applied to the system.
The experimental test of Fig. 10 shows the robustness of the
proposed control system. A power step is not realistic in wind
energy applications. However, even for this drastic test, the
performance of the proposed control system is still quite good.
In order to test the performance of the control system, input
disturbance current profiles IG are injected to the WECS dc-
link capacitors with a variable period T . Varying the period
can test the control scheme for a number of conditions found
in practice: wind gusts, high-turbulence wind speed variations,
1134
Fig. 11. Control system considering a current profile of variable frequency. (a) Current profile with variable period T . (b) DC-link-voltage variation corresponding
to a fundamental frequency of 0.1 Hz. (c) DC-link-voltage variation corresponding to a fundamental frequency of ≈ 5 Hz.
tower shadow effects [21] and IG ripple content arising from
the WECS generator converter. The current profile IG repre-
senting a power variation between 0 and ≈ 1 kW (0% to 50%
of nominal power) was applied at two frequencies: ≈ 0.1 Hz
representing a wind gust test [see Fig. 11(a)] and 5 Hz,
representing, e.g., turbulence or tower shadow. As a worst case
scenario, the WECS side capacitance is set at a relatively low
value of CG ≈ 1270 µF. Fig. 11(b) and (c) shows the dc-link-
voltage control response to the 0.1 and 5 Hz disturbances,
respectively. For 0.1 Hz, EG has ±5 V (1%) variation, with
the variation in the direct component of the load voltage vd at
3 V. For 5 Hz, which is outside the controller bandwidth, the EG
variation is 486–523 V (−2.8% to 4.6%), which is acceptable
given the large power variation. At 20 Hz (not shown), an EG
variation of 492–512 V (−1.6% to 2.4%) was observed with
a vd load voltage variation of 5 V. The experimental results
show that the maximum voltage oscillations occur for an IG
disturbance frequency of ≈ 5 Hz. However, even in this case
the regulation achieved by the proposed control system is good.
V. C ONCLUSION
This paper has presented a new control strategy for power
balancing in a variable-speed wind generation or wind–diesel
system feeding an isolated grid. The WECS comprises a
variable-speed wind turbine and back-to-back power convert-
ers. The ESS system comprises a front-end power converter
interfacing an energy storage medium (flywheel or batteries).
The WECS is connected to the load using a vector controlled
front-end converter, which regulates the load voltage and fre-
quency. Power balancing is achieved by regulating the dc-link
voltage of the WECS converter using the direct component of
the current supplied by the ESS front-end converter. A complete
small-signal model has been derived for the dynamics of the
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ESS front-end converter, the WECS-side dc-link capacitors and
the WECS front-end converter. A control system, based on the
model, was developed. Experimental results, using real wind
profiles, wind gusts, and power steps, have been presented and
the results demonstrate excellent performance. For a typical
wind profile the voltage regulation in the ac load is almost
perfect. Even with a relatively large load step of 1.2 kW (for
a 2-kW system), the dip and the overshoot of the load voltage
are acceptably small. The control system has also been tested
for operation with low-power-factor loads, step changes in
the input power and disturbance current profiles with variable
frequency content; the performance obtained is also good.
The experimental and simulation results obtained in this
paper are very promising and illustrate the advantages and
improvements that can be expected when modern control
techniques and power conversion are applied to wind–diesel
systems. Although this paper has concentrated on a stand-
alone system, the techniques presented are equally applicable to
systems, which have a weak connection to a larger grid system.
Further work will address the problem of unbalanced and
nonlinear loads, which may be a particular problem for isolated
three-phase grids. The paper considers a balanced linear R–L
grid load for verifying the basic idea of the control strategy.
A PPENDIX
Natural frequency of the load voltage controller 7 Hz;
natural Frequency of the dc-link-voltage controller 4 Hz;
natural frequency of the WECS d−q current
control systems 70 Hz;
natural frequency of the ESS d−q current
control systems 70 Hz;
switching frequency of the PWM front-end
converters 1 kHz;
CÁRDENAS et al.: VECTOR CONTROL OF FRONT-END CONVERTERS FOR WIND–DIESEL SYSTEMS
frequency of the stand-alone grid 50 kHz;
resonant frequency of the second-order filter ≈ 500 Hz;
∗ México, Jun. 2003, pp. 779–784.
demand dc-link voltage EG 500 V;
∗
demand load voltage vd 110 V;
dc-link capacitance 2400 µF;
dc-link capacitance for the experimental
results shown in Fig. 11 1270 µF.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the British Council, through
their academic links program, which has made the collaboration
between the Universidad de Magallanes and the University of
Nottingham possible.
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Roberto Cárdenas (S’95–M’97) was born in Punta
Arenas, Chile. He received the Electrical Engineer-
ing degree from the University of Magallanes, Punta
Arenas, Chile, in 1988, and the M.sc. and Ph.D.
degrees from the University of Nottingham, Notting-
ham, U.K., in 1992 and 1996, respectively.
From 1989 to 1991, he was a Lecturer at the
University of Magallanes. He is currently with the
Electrical Engineering Department, University of
Magallanes. His main interests are in control of
electrical machines, variable-speed drives, and re-
newable energy systems.
Dr. Cárdenas is the principal author of the paper that received the Best
Paper Award from the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, for the best pa-
per published in the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS
during 2004.
Rubén Peña (S’94–M’96) was born in Coronel,
Chile. He received the degree in electrical engineer-
ing from the University of Concepcion, Concepcion,
Chile, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the Uni-
versity of Nottingham, Nottingham, U.K., in 1984,
1992, and 1996, respectively.
From 1985 to 1991, he was a Lecturer with the
University of Magallanes, Punta Arenas, Chile. He
is currently with the Electrical Engineering Depart-
ment, University of Magallanes. His main interests
include control of power electronics converters, ac
drives, and renewable energy systems.
Marcelo Pérez was born in Punta Arenas, Chile. He
received the degree in electrical engineering from
the University of Magallanes, Punta Arenas, Chile,
in 2003.
He is currently a Research Assistant with the Elec-
trical Engineering Department, University of Maga-
llanes. His main interests include power electronics
and digital control using DSPs.
Jon Clare (M’90–SM’04) was born in Bristol, U.K.
He received the B.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in elec-
trical engineering from the University of Bristol,
Bristol, U.K.
From 1984 to 1990, he was a Research Assistant
and Lecturer at the University of Bristol, involved in
teaching and research in power electronic systems.
Since 1990, he has been with the Power Electron-
ics, Machines and Control Group at the University
of Nottingham, Nottingham, U.K., and is currently
Professor in Power Electronics and Head of Research
Group. His research interests are power electronic converters and modulation
strategies, variable-speed drive systems, and electromagnetic compatibility.
Prof. Clare is a member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, U.K.,
and is an Associate Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL
ELECTRONICS.
1136 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 53, NO. 4, AUGUST 2006

Greg Asher (M’98–SM’04) graduated in electrical Fernando Vargas (S’03) was born in Punta Arenas,
and electronic engineering and received the Ph.D. Chile. He received the Electrical Engineering degree
degree in bond graph structures and general dynamic from the University of Magallanes, Punta Arenas,
systems from Bath University, Bath, U.K., in 1976 Chile, in 2004. He is currently working toward the
and 1979, respectively. M.Sc. degree in the Electrical Engineering Depart-
In 1984, he was appointed Lecturer in Control in ment, University of Magallanes.
the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering His main interests are power electronics, control
at the University of Nottingham, Nottingham, U.K., of electrical drives, and digital control using DSPs.
where he developed an interest in motor drive sys-
tems, particularly the control of ac machines. He was
appointed Professor of Electrical Drives in 2000 and
is currently Head of the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the
University of Nottingham. He has published over 180 research papers, and has
received over $5M in research contracts.
Prof. Asher was a member of the Executive Committee of the European
Power Electronics (EPE) Association until 2003. He is an Associate Editor of
the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS and is currently
Chair of the Power Electronics Technical Committee for the IEEE Industrial
Electronics Society.

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