A Method to Reduce DC-link Overvoltage of PMSG
Based WECS during LVRT
Papan Dey, Manoj Datta, Nuwantha Fernando
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
RMIT University, Melbourne,
Victoria 3000, Australia
Abstract—Low Voltage Ride-Through (LVRT) is one of the
most important grid connection requirements for the wind
energy conversion systems (WECS). In this paper, flux
weakening control of permanent magnet synchronous generator
(PMSG) based WECS is proposed to reduce the DC-link
capacitor overvoltage for the enhancement of LVRT during
symmetrical and asymmetrical grid voltage dips. The controller
is developed based on the proportional resonant (PR) current
controller. The proposed method is compared with the braking
chopper (BC) based conventional method. Time series simulation
results illustrate the validity and effectiveness of the proposed
control.
Keywords— Low voltage ride through (LVRT); Flux weakenin;
Permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG); Fault; Dc-link
voltage
I. INTRODUCTION
PMSG based wind turbine generator (WTG) with back to back
converters has achieved a lot of interest due to its excellent
performance in the aspect of LVRT during grid faults [1]. The
control methods to limit DC-link capacitor overvoltage during
fault ride through (FRT) mostly contain: unloading circuit
installation at converter DC-link to absorb the excess power;
energy storage element connection at the DC-link, e.g., super
capacitor for quick active power exchange; connecting a
secondary converter in parallel to the DC-link to deliver a
bypass for excess power [2]. These types of arrangements
require additional devices; increase the size of converter and
system cost as well as the controller becomes complicated [3].
Flux weakening control is an established technique for motor
drives. However; its use for LVRT of WTG is not reported in
any literature so far. This method weakens the flux of PMSG
by supplying negative field regulating current to use the
maximum voltage limit of the converter. For flux weakening
region, it is required to limit the current and voltage of the
converter and the generator. The voltage limit is selected
based on the generator rated voltage or the DC-link voltage.
Therefore, DC-link voltage is related with the flux weakening
control.
In this paper, a PR current controller based flux weakening
method is adopted to minimize the DC-link overvoltage and to
enhance the LVRT performances during symmetrical and
asymmetrical grid faults. From numerical simulation results, it
is evident that the proposed method works satisfactorily to
limit DC-link over voltage during grid faults.
978-1-5090-2597-8/16/$31.00 2016
c IEEE
Tomonobu Senjyu
Dept. of Electrical and Electronics of Engineering,
University of the Ryukyus, Nishihara
Okinawa, Japan
The organisation of this paper is as follows: PMSG based
wind turbine with conventional control is described in Section
II. The proposed control is discussed in Section III. Simulation
results with analysis and discussions are presented in Section
IV. Finally, conclusions are drawn in Section V.
II. DESCRIPTION OF SYSTEM AND CONTROL
A block diagram of the grid connected PMSG based
WECS is shown in Fig.1. It comprises of a wind turbine,
PMSG, machine side converter (MSC), DC- link capacitor and
a grid side converter (GSC). The system is connected to grid
via transformer and transmission lines. The PMSG is modelled
with the d-q equivalent circuits [4],[5].The grid side voltage is
d-axis oriented; hence voltage of q-axis is zero.
A. Control of MSC
MSC is controlled by applying zero α-axis component of
stator current. Two independent PR controllers are designed as
shown in Fig. 1.They control the α-axis and ȕ- axis currents
such as current of α- axis to be zero and current of ȕ- axis can
utilize the torque of the generator.
B. Control of GSC
For the GSC, two PI controllers are designed as shown in
Fig. 1. The d-axis PI current control loop is for controlling the
voltage of DC-link and to inject the real power and the PI loop
of q-axis current is used for controlling the reactive power or
for the regulation of grid voltage [6].
C. Conventional control with the BC
The BC [6] is used in the DC-link for the active power
dissipation during the grid faults. It comprises of a high power
resistor with a series switch which is shown in Fig.2 (a).
Control of BC is based on voltage limit. The real voltage
frequently tracks the reference voltage via a hysteresis-band.
Pre-set higher and lower tolerance limits are matched to the
extracted signal as shown in Fig.2 (b). As long as the signal is
within the tolerance band, no switching action is taken.
Switching occurs whenever the voltage signal crosses the
threshold voltage limit.
III. PROPOSED CONTROL METHOD
At the time of symmetrical and asymmetrical grid faults,
high voltage is induced in the rotor of the PMSG due to the
flux linkages [7]. This induced EMF is higher enough
compared to the usual EMF under normal operating condition
and it exceeds the maximum voltage of the MSC.
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 Fig. 1. Grid connected PMSG with back to back converter
Fig. 2(a). Wind turbine with DC-link BC protection
Fig. 2 (b). BC controller block diagram
Due to this voltage, high current flows in the rotor circuit that
can damage the converter and can increase the DC-link
voltage above the acceptable limit. As the excitation of the
magnetic field is constant, the induced voltage increases with
the increase of the rotor speed [8]. Therefore, the field
excitation has to be adjusted to achieve a constant DC-link
voltage.
In stationary frame, the three phase stator currents can be
represented as the flux current component, Iα and the torque
current component, Iȕ; and at any time, the limits of voltage
and current must satisfy the following:
Vα + Vβ ≤ Vmax (1)
2 2 2
I α + I β ≤ I max
2 2 2 2S
(2)
where, the maximum magnitude of phase voltage and phase
current is Vmax and Imax respectively. Vmax is determined by the
available DC-link voltage, Vdc and the converter modulation
method.
2016 IEEE Region 10 Conference (TENCON) — Proceedings of the International Conference
V max = 1 / 3 V dc is considered for the sinusoidal vector
modulation. Imax is defined by the power ratings of the
generator and converter. To maximise the torque per ampere
ratio Iα is set to zero at low speeds for surface mounted PMSG
[8], [9]. It indicates that by injecting negative ъ-axis current,
the total flux in PMSG windings can be decreased.
Though PI controller is frequently considered in conventional
flux weakening control, it requires axis transformations and it
cannot track sinusoidal reference currents without static
tracking error. To realise good dynamic performance, the
decoupling current control system are usually used in the MSC
with cross-coupling terms and feed forward compensation
terms. These terms vary with the circuit parameters and
temperature and affect the system robustness.
In the decoupling current control system, an integrator is used
for steady-state error elimination. This integrator’s
performance can be improved, by transforming it in to a
resonator to track the sinusoidal reference current via (3)
Gac ( S ) = Gdc ( S − jω 0 ) + G dc ( S + jω 0 ) (3)
Now the equivalent transfer function Gac(s) is
2S
Gac ( S ) = K i ( S ) * (4)
S + ω0
2 2
Therefore, the transfer function of PR controller is
G PR ( S ) = K P + K i ( S ) * (5)
S + ω0
2 2
where, Ki and Kp are the proportional constant and the time
integral constant respectively. Ȧ0 is the resonant frequency
[10].
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Fig.3. PR based Flux weakening control for MSC
The PR based flux weakening control diagram is shown in
Fig. 3.Using Clarke transformation three phase ac currents can
be converted into orthogonal Į-ȕ currents. The difference
between PR current controllers’ output voltages (V*α, V*β) and
the converter DC-link voltage is passed through a PI controller
and a limiter to generate the Id reference current for flux
weakening control. Iq reference current is the difference
between maximum converter current and Id reference current.
Then the Id and Iq reference currents are transformed to
generate IĮ reference current. It can be noticed that, there is no
coupling terms (ȦeLdsIds, ȦeLdsIqs) and feed forward
compensation term (Ȧeijs ) eliminating the impact of the
circuit parameters on the control system, which improves
system robustness [11].
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
Numerical simulation results are obtained in
MATLAB/Simulink for a 1.5 MW WECS during grid faults.
Simulation time is 2 seconds.
A. Symmetrical Fault
A three line to ground fault is considered as the most severe
type of grid fault and is applied on the 25 kV line of Fig. 1 at
1s. This fault duration is 0.5s. Simulation results by using the
conventional control with BC are shown in Fig. 4 and by using
the proposed method are shown in Fig. 5 for symmetrical grid
fault.
From Fig.4 (a) and Fig. 5(a), it is observed that a large dip in
the grid voltage is occurred and the grid voltage is reduced
from 100% of its nominal value to 30%. As a consequence,
the DC-link voltage is increased to approximately 1.5 times of
its rated value as shown in Fig. 4(e) and Fig. 5(e) respectively
without any LVRT control.
The LVRT control takes action and the fault is cleared at 1.5s.
Grid current, generator voltage, generator current during this
condition are shown in Figs. 4(b) to(d) and Figs. 5(b) to(d) for
the conventional control and the proposed control
respectively. From Fig. 4(e) and Fig. 5(e), it is observed that
the DC-link voltage is well regulated within the acceptable
1896 2016 IEEE Region 10 Conference (TENCON) — Proceedings of the International Conference
limit with the proposed control and overall fluctuations and
transients are less than that of the conventional control.
However, at the fault clearance time of 1.5s, the proposed
method shows little higher DC-link voltage transients
compared to the conventional method. Coordination of the
MSC and GSC controllers along with better gain tuning will
minimize these transients.
B. Asymmetrical Fault
For the second simulation scenario, a double line to ground
fault is considered. It is the most common type of grid fault
and is applied on the 25 kV line of Fig. 1 at 1s. The fault
duration is 0.5s. Simulation results by using the conventional
control with BC are shown in Fig. 6 and by using the proposed
method are shown in Fig. 7 for asymmetrical grid fault.
As shown in Fig. 6 (a) and Fig. 7(a), a medium dip in the grid
voltage is occurred and the grid voltage is reduced from 100%
of its nominal value to 60%. As a consequence, the DC-link
voltage is increased to approximately 1.4 times its rated value
as shown in Fig. 6(e) and Fig. 7(e) respectively without any
LVRT control.
The LVRT control takes action and the fault is cleared at 1.5s.
Grid current, generator voltage, generator current during this
condition are shown in Figs. 6(b) to(d) and Figs. 7(b) to(d) for
the conventional control and the proposed control
respectively. From Fig. 6(e) and Fig. 7(e), it is observed that
the DC-link voltage is quite well regulated within the
acceptable limit with the proposed control and overall
fluctuations and transients are quite less than that of the
conventional control.
For the asymmetrical fault, at the fault clearance time of 1.5s,
the proposed method shows very few DC-link voltage
transients compared to the conventional method. With the
coordination of the MSC and GSC controllers and better gain
tuning these transients can ne minimized more.
V. CONLUSION
To limit the DC-link capacitor overvoltage during LVRT of
direct driven PMSG based WECS, this paper proposed a
control technique based on flux weakening. From the
numerical simulation results, it is observed that the proposed
method is capable of limiting the DC-link overvoltage under
symmetrical and asymmetrical grid faults. Due to the
simplicity and effectiveness of the proposed control, it can be
a superior choice compared to the conventional control during
LVRT. Future works will coordinate the proposed control with
the pitch angle and GSC controls to provide a better during
and after fault transient performances validated through
experimental results.
 (a) (a)

(b) (b)

(c) (c)

(d) (d)

(e) (e)
Fig. 4. Simulation results using the BC for the symmetrical grid fault. (a) Grid Fig. 5. Simulation results using the proposed controller for the asymmetrical
voltage; (b) Grid current; (c) Generator voltage; (d) Generator current; (e) DC- grid fault. (a) Grid voltage; (b) Grid current; ( c) Generator voltage; (d)
link voltage. Generator current; (e) DC-link voltage

2016 IEEE Region 10 Conference (TENCON) — Proceedings of the International Conference 1897
 (a) (a)

(b) (b)

(c) (c)

(d) (d)

(e) (e)
Fig.6. Simulation results using the BC for the asymmetrical grid fault. (a) Grid Fig.7. Simulation results for flux weakening controller a) Grid voltage b) Grid
voltage; (b) Grid current; (c) Generator voltage; (d) Generator current; (e) DC- current c) Generator voltage d) Generator current e) DC voltage
link voltage.

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