Wind Power Virtual Synchronous Generator Frequency Regulation Characteristics

Field Test and Analysis

Y Cui1,2, P Song1,2, X S Wang1,2, W X Yang1,2, H H M Liu3

Liu1,2 3
Zhangjikou Wind, Photovoltaic and Energy Storage
1
State Grid Jibei Electric Power Co.Ltd. Research Demonstration Station Co. ltd.
Institute, North China Electric Power Research Institute Zhangjiakou, China
Co. Ltd.
2
State Grid Wind-Photovoltaic-Energy Storage Hybrid
Power Generation Technology Laboratory
Beijing, China
e-mail:cy01583@163.com

Abstract—Compared with conventional synchronous
generators, wind turbines are connected to power grid through
converters. Active power response and grid frequency are
decoupled. Wind turbines do not have the ability of active
frequency support. With the rapid development of new energy
power in China, wind power penetration continues to increase.
New challenges of gird frequency stability occur. Virtual
synchronous generator (VSG) Demonstration Project is built
in Zhangbei Wind, Photovoltaic and Energy Storage Station by
State Grid. Through the VSG technology reform of wind
turbines, active frequency regulation ability is possessed.
Reserve capacity and rotor inertia control technical routes of
wind power virtual synchronous generator (WPVSG) are
introduced. A field test method is presented. The method is
based on analog frequency disturbance applied to the
secondary side. Field test is conducted. The results show that
WPVSG has ability of active frequency regulation support.
Two kinds of control methods have their own characteristics.
Keywords-wind power virtual synchronous generator;
frequency regulation; field test
I. INTRODUCTION
China's new energy power generation is developing
rapidly. China's wind power installed capacity has reached
168.7GW in 2016. New installed capacity is 23.4GW. The
total installed capacity is expected to reach 210GW by 2020
[1]. A high percentage of new energy access has become a
major feature of future power systems. Compared with
conventional synchronous generators, wind turbines are
connected to the grid via converters. The output of active
power is completely decoupled from grid frequency [2].
When system frequency changes as a result of DC blocking
or load sudden change [3], wind turbines do not have the
initiative to respond. The rotational inertia of wind turbines
is zero. Therefore, power grid frequency regulation
capability is weaken after large-scale wind power access.
Risk to frequency stability of power system increases [4-5].
Domestic and foreign scholars and research institutes
have carried out a great deal of research on wind power
frequency regulation technology [6]. A strategy of wind
power frequency regulation based on maximum torque limit
is proposed [7]. Variable droop control method is studied [8].
Aiming at the problem of frequency disturbance caused by
rotor inertia control, improved strategies of additional power
is proposed [9]. VSG technology applied to wind turbines
grid-connected control is mainly in the aspects of normal
operation state and control strategies under grid fault [10-11].
Field test and analysis is not carried out.
VSG Demonstration Project is built in Zhangbei Wind,
Photovoltaic and Energy Storage Station by State Grid in
2016. WPVSG engineering reform has completed. Due to
the lack of measured data, wind turbines frequency
regulation characteristics is not clear.
Aimed at WPVSG of Demonstration Project, reserve
capacity and rotor inertia control are presented in this paper.
According to control structure of WPVSG, a field test
method based on analog frequency disturbance applied to the
secondary side of WPVSG is presented. Various test
conditions are designed. Field test is conducted and test data
is analyzed.
II. WPVSG CONTROL METHOD
WPVSG of Demonstration Project control structure is
shown in figure 1.
 &RQYHUWHU

 Kf*PN/fN 
d/dt TJ*PN/fN
Figure 1. WPVSG control structure.
As shown in figure 1, fN is rated frequency; fpll is the
frequency collected by converter PLL; Δf is the amount of
frequency change; df/dt is the rate of frequency change; TJ
and Kf are inertia time constant and active frequency

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 regulation factor; PN is wind turbine rated capacity; ᇞP is the
increment of WPVSG active power.
According to the actual frequency changes, active power
increments are calculated by VSG control part of master
control system. The increments are superimposed with the
initial active power. The final result is the target of active
power controlled by converter.
A. Reserve Capacity Control
WPVSG of Demonstration Project reserves capacity by
pitch control. When wind turbines operate normally and
wind speed is less than rated speed, pitch angel usually keeps
0° to ensure maximum capture of wind energy. Under
electromagnetic power maintains current value, the low
speed protection will be triggered to stop. Wind turbines
must end frequency regulation process and return to normal
operation control. Electromagnetic power drops from point C
to D. After that, the electromagnetic power is recovered by
D→A, while mechanical power is E→A. Electromagnetic
power is less than mechanical power, generator speed
continues to rise. When reaching point A, the
electromagnetic power equals mechanical power leading to
stable operation.
C B
0.4

Active power/pu
reserve capacity control, pitch angel is always greater than 0°. 0.3 A
E 7m/s
Wind turbines operate on deloading state [8]. When WPVSG
detects system frequency change, reserve capacity can be
released (or stored) by adjusting pitch angle. Thus, active 0.2
power support are provided. Reserve capacity control D
operation curves are shown in figure 2 which wind speed is 0.1
between 7m/s~8.5m/s. 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
1000 Generator speed/pu
8m/s
Figure 3. Rotor inertia control operation curves.
Active power/kW

800
7m/s
Rotor inertia control in constant speed interval is similar
to MPPT interval. The difference is that the generator speed
600 10%PN at point A is rated speed.
β=0

400
β>0 Normal operation curves
Deloading curves
200
0.9 1 1.1 1.2 1.3
Generator speed/pu
Figure 2. Reserve capacity control operation curves.
Wind turbines reserve 10%PN capacity according to wind
conditions to respond to frequency change in figure 2. Pitch
angels are 1.8° and 1.4° respectively under 7m/s and 8m/s.
B. Rotor Inertia Control
WPVSG does not need reserve capacity under rotor
inertia control. When system frequency changes, generator
speed decreases (or increases) to releasing (or storing)
rotational inertia to provide active power support [9]. When
wind turbines operate at maximum power point tracker
(MPPT) interval, rotor inertia control operation curves are
shown in figure 3.
As shown in figure 3, wind turbines mechanical power
varying with generator speed is blue curve in 7m/s. The red
curve is the active power curve corresponding to each
generator speed during normal operation of wind turbines.
When system frequency is rated and wind speed is 7m/s,
wind turbines run at point A. Electromagnetic power of wind
turbines rises from point A to B when frequency drops.
Electromagnetic power maintains B→C under frequency
regulation process. Mechanical power changes from A to E.
As the electromagnetic power is always greater than
mechanical power, generator speed is declining. Wind
turbines provide active power support by releasing rotational
inertia. When generator speed drops to the lower limit and
III. FIELD TEST METHOD
Based on the control structure of Demonstration Project
WPVSG, a field test method of unit frequency regulation
performance is presented in this paper. Power grid frequency
disturbance is simulated by applying a disturbance signal on
the secondary side of wind turbines. Compared with the
method of applying frequency disturbance directly on grid
side, this method has the advantages of low cost, high testing
efficiency and safety. The method test principle diagram is
shown in figure 4.
690V/35kV
Grid
Gearbox
DFIG
Convertors Voltage and current
Data Acquisition
AC voltage signals
Convertor control
Pitch angel control
Signal Generator
Master control
Wind speed etc.
Figure 4. Frequency regulation test principle diagram.
As shown in figure 4, the signal generator outputs 3 AC
voltage signals to wind turbines converters. Power grid
frequency disturbance is simulated by adjusting AC voltage
frequency. Analog frequency signal is collected by
converters and feeds back to master control system. Master
control system adjusts the active power of wind turbines to
actively participate in frequency regulation according
frequency changes. Test data is collected and recorded by

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 data acquisition equipment, including wind speed, pitch
angel, generator speed, active power, electromagnetic torque,
three-phase voltage and current of unit, AC voltage signals
and so on.
According to the control method of WPVSG, wind
turbines operation intervals and frequency disturbance, 16
kinds of test conditions are set as shown in Table 1.
TABLE I. TEST CONDITIONS
Reserve capacity
Rotor inertia control
control
Test conditions Frequency Frequency Frequency Frequency
step slope step slope
disturbance disturbance disturbance disturbance
MPPT interval Condition1 Condition5 Condition9 Condition13
Constant speed
Condition2 Condition6 Condition10 Condition14
interval
Rated power interval Condition3 Condition7 Condition11 Condition15
Limited power
Condition4 Condition8 Condition12 Condition16
interval
IV. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
Taking the Demonstration Project WPVSG as research
object, a total of test is carried out according to the field test
method described above. Wind turbines rated power is 2MW.
The upper limit of active power support is 10%PN and lower
limit is -20%PN. The reserve capacity is 10%PN (200kW)
under reserve capacity control. Generator speed lower limit
is 1250rpm and upper limit is 1800rpm under rotor inertia
control.
To evaluate frequency regulation performance of
WPVSG quantitatively, active power increment, active
power error and response time three indexes are used. The
definitions are as follows:
1) Active power increment: the difference between active
power target value and initial value.
2) Active power error: the difference between actual
active power increment and theoretical calculated increment
which calculated as figure 1.
3) Response time: the time from the beginning of
frequency change to active power change reaching 90% of
increment.
A. Reserve Capacity Control Test Results
Wind turbines operate in MPPT interval. The frequency
steps from 50Hz to 49.5Hz. Inertia time constant TJ and
active frequency regulation factor Kf are 5 and 20
respectively. The measured curves are shown in figure 5.
Frequency regulation performance indexes are shown in
table 2.
As shown in figure 5 and table 2, the active power of
wind turbines before frequency regulation is 521 kW
(26.1%PN) and pitch angle is 4.2°. Wind turbines power
output increases in 0.6s by 188kW (9.4%PN) after frequency
starting declining. The final steady value is 730kW
(36.5%PN). The pitch angle is gradually adjusted to 0° in the
above process. Reserve capacity is released by reducing
pitch angle.
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Figure 5. Reserve capacity control measured curves.
TABLE II. FREQUENCY REGULATION PERFORMANCE INDEXES UNDER
RESERVE CAPACITY CONTROL
Active power Active power Active power Response
initial value (kW) increment (kW) error (kW) time (s)
521 (26.1%PN) 209 (10.5%PN) 9 (0.5%PN) 0.6
The advantage of reserve capacity control is continuous
active power support by theoretical analysis and engineering
test. The disadvantages are power generation and economic
losses of wind farm caused by reserve capacity. Typical
output curves in the year of 2016 of 100MW wind farm in
Jibei Power Grid are used for calculating. Loss of power
calculation results due to 10%PN reserve capacity are shown
in table 3.
TABLE III. LOSS OF POWER CALCULATION RESULTS UNDER RESERVE
CAPACITY CONTROL
Annual power Annual economic Power generation
generation loss (kWh) loss (yuan) loss percentage (%)
4.6×107 2.5×107 18.6
It can be seen from table 3 that wind farm economic loss
caused by reserve capacity is enormous. This is contrary to
China’s policy of vigorously promoting the consumption of
renewable energy. It is difficult for large-scale promotion.
B. Rotor inertia control test results
Wind turbines operate in MPPT interval. The frequency
is reduced from 50Hz to 48.1Hz at 0.5Hz/s slope. Inertia
time constant TJ and active frequency regulation factor Kf are
5 and 20 respectively. The measured curves are shown in
figure 6. Frequency regulation performance indexes are
shown in table 4.
As shown in figure 6 and table 4, the active power of
wind turbines before frequency regulation is 768kW
(38.4%PN) and generator speed is 1643rpm. Wind turbines
power output increases in 0.5s by 185kW (9.3%PN) after
frequency starting declining. The final steady value is
974kW (48.7%PN). The pitch angle remains 0°. Generator
speed continues to decline and the minimum value is
1240rpm. Active power support is provided by releasing
rotational inertia. Wind turbines end frequency regulation
 process after generator speed dropping to lower limit. Wind
turbines turn to normal control and gradually resume
generator speed and active power. Active power support time
is 20.7s and recovery time is 29.0s in the process.
Figure 6. Rotor inertia control measured curves.
TABLE IV. FREQUENCY REGULATION PERFORMANCE INDEXES
UNDER ROTOR INERTIA CONTROL
Active power Active power Active power
initial value (kW) increment (kW) error (kW)
768 (38.4%PN) 206 (10.3%PN) 6 (0.3%PN)
The advantage of rotor inertia control is economic
operation due to no reserve capacity by theoretical analysis
and engineering test. The disadvantage is unable to provide
active power support for a long time. When generator speed
is restored, the instantaneous drop of electromagnetic power
is larger. As shown in figure 6, electromagnetic power drops
rapidly from 974kW (48.7%PN) to 316kW (15.8%PN). A
large power shortage results in system frequency "second
drop" phenomenon. The above frequency regulation process
is simulated in MATLAB/Simulink model. New energy
accounts for 20% in simulation system. 5% of installed
capacity power shortage happens in 20s. Wind power
absence of frequency regulation and active frequency
regulation simulation results are shown in figure 7.
50
49.8
49.6
f/Hz
49.4 no frequency
regulation
49.2 active frequency
regulation
49 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
t/s
Figure 7. System frequency simulation curves under rotor inertia control.
System frequency characteristic is improved by wind
power frequency regulation in figure 7. The minimum value
of first frequency increases from 49.7Hz to 49.8Hz. However,
frequency second drop is caused by generator speed recovery.
The minimum value of second frequency is 49.1Hz. The safe
and stable operation of power system is endangered.
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V. CONCLUSIONS
The main conclusion or summary from the present study
is as follows:
1) A field test method based on analog frequency
disturbance applied to the secondary side of WPVSG is
presented. The method has the advantages of low cost, high
testing efficiency and safety.
2) WPVSG of Demonstration Project has frequency
regulation capability, which can take the initiative to
participate in power grid frequency regulation process.
3) Continuous active power support are provided by
reserve capacity control, which results in additional loss of
power generation. Short-term support is supplied by rotor
inertial control, but there is a risk of second drop in system
frequency due to generator speed recovery.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This paper is supported by the National Science &
Technology Pillar Program of China (No. 2015BAA06B03)
and the National Power Grid Corp Science and Technology
Project “Key Operation and Maintenance Technology
Research on Major Science and Technology Demonstration
Response Project of Zhangjiakou Renewable Energy Demonstration
time (s) Area”.
0.5
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