IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 29, NO.

4, JULY 2014 1683

Instability of Wind Turbine Converters During

Current Injection to Low Voltage Grid Faults and
PLL Frequency Based Stability Solution
Ömer Göksu, Student Member, IEEE, Remus Teodorescu, Fellow, IEEE, Claus Leth Bak, Senior Member, IEEE,
Florin Iov, Senior Member, IEEE, and Philip Carne Kjær, Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract—In recent grid codes for wind power integration, wind

turbines are required to stay connected during grid faults even
when the grid voltage drops down to zero; and also to inject reac-
tive current in proportion to the voltage drop. However, a physical
fact, instability of grid-connected converters during current injec-
tion to very low (close to zero) voltage faults, has been omitted, i.e.,
failed to be noticed in the previous wind power studies and grid
code revisions. In this paper, the instability of grid side converters
of wind turbines defined as loss of synchronism (LOS), where the
wind turbines lose synchronism with the grid fundamental fre-
quency (e.g., 50 Hz) during very deep voltage sags, is explored with
its theory, analyzed and a novel stability solution based on PLL fre-
quency is proposed; and both are verified with power system sim- Fig. 1. ENTSO-E FRT requirement for connections above 110 kV [3].
ulations and by experiments on a grid-connected converter setup.
Index Terms—Converters, current control, power system faults,
power system stability, wind power generation.

I. INTRODUCTION

C OMMON to most of the grid codes, wind power plants

(WPPs) are required to stay connected during short-cir-
cuit grid faults, and also to inject reactive current in order to
support the grid voltage [1]–[3]. In the German VDN grid code
[2], which is a well-established code influencing the following
codes, and recently published code of the ENTSO-E [3], which
is proposed as a common frame for all European countries,
the WPPs are expected to stay connected even when the grid
voltage drops down to zero; as shown by the fault ride-through
(FRT) voltage profile of the ENTSO-E in Fig. 1. Additionally,
the WPPs are required to inject reactive current during fault in
proportion to the voltage drop, as a proportional voltage control
scheme, where the gain can be adjustable between 0 and 10, with
a deadband applied to the voltage deviation. A generic reactive
Manuscript received May 06, 2013; revised August 05, 2013 and November
10, 2013; accepted December 08, 2013. Date of publication January 09, 2014;
date of current version June 16, 2014. This work was supported in part by Vestas
Wind Systems A/S under the Vestas Power Programme. Any opinions, findings,
and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the
authors and do not necessarily reflect those of Vestas Wind Systems A/S. Paper
no. TPWRS-00561-2013.
Ö. Göksu, R. Teodorescu, C. L. Bak, and F. Iov are with the Department
of Energy Technology, Aalborg University, Aalborg 9220, Denmark (e-mail:
omg@et.aau.dk; ret@et.aau.dk; clb@et.aau.dk; fi@et.aau.dk).
P. C. Kjær is with Vestas Wind Systems A/S, Århus 8200, Denmark (e-mail:
pck@vestas.com).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRS.2013.2295261
Fig. 2. Generic reactive current requirement and active current during fault.
current profile is given as the solid line in Fig. 2, where 1 pu
reactive current is required when the voltage drops below 40%
of the rated. In [2] and [3] the FRT voltage profile is defined for
the point of common coupling (PCC) of the WPP; whereas the
reactive current requirement is stated to be realized at the wind
turbine (WT) level at low-voltage side of the WT transformer;
but also verification at PCC level is encouraged in [2]. Addi-
tionally, the dynamics of step response for the reactive current
is defined in [2] and [3], such that the rise time is allowed to be
specified as small as 10 ms in [3].
In accordance with the grid code requirements and progress
of available technology, modern WTs such as the target platform
of this paper, the full-scale converter wind turbine (FSCWT),
are designed. The FSCWT has the capability that the active
and reactive current injection to the grid are independently con-
trolled within the maximum current capacity of the wind tur-
bine, which can be rated value (1 pu) or slightly higher (e.g.,
1.2 pu). As a conventional method for the FSCWT; while in-
jecting reactive current as per grid code requirement, any re-
maining capacity is utilized for active current injection. Excess

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1684
Fig. 3. Aggregated WPP and Thevenin equivalent grid for simulation studies (
active power that cannot be injected to the grid during faults is
dissipated on the chopper resistance of the DC link [4]. For in-
stance for a FSCWT with current capacity of 1.1 pu, remaining
capacity for active current injection is given by the gray-shaded
area in Fig. 2. Hence, with the conventional method for current
injection, for very low (close to zero) voltage faults, FSCWT
would be injecting:
• 1 pu reactive current;
• non-specific active current, depending on the capacity and
power generation of the WT, which can be zero as well.
Response of WTs during grid faults has been widely studied
both by academia and wind power industry [4]–[13]. Impact of
wind turbines’ fault response on power system stability is thor-
oughly studied in [5] and [6]. In [7]–[9], methods to improve
grid support by WPPs are proposed. Regarding the impact of
faults on WTs; [10] studies the dc link voltage and generator
speed oscillations; and [11] and [12] cover advanced methods to
improve grid synchronization performance during faults. How-
ever, any of the previous studies does not cover the stability
of the grid-side converters in terms of low-frequency dynamic
behavior of current regulation and grid synchronization under
faults, which is the main focus of this paper as reported in the
following parts. Additionally, even though the grid codes re-
quire the reactive current injection for voltage dips down to zero
volts at the PCC bus [2], [3], the previous wind power fault
studies [4]–[13] are missing the analysis for such severe faults
with remaining voltage less than 10% of the rated.
This paper is exploring the low-frequency dynamic instability
of the grid-connected converters of WPPs during current injec-
tion to severe faults, where the voltage at the PCC drops close to
zero (e.g., 5% of the rated), which has been failed to be covered
in the previous wind power fault studies; additionally proposing
a novel stability solution. As will be given in detail in the fol-
lowing parts, when the grid side converters of FSCWTs are in-
jecting currents during severe faults in accordance with the grid
codes (1 pu reactive current and a non-specific magnitude of ac-
tive current), the synchronization with the main grid frequency
(e.g., 50 Hz) can be lost; which can result in tripping of the WPP,
causing generation loss and endangering the power system sta-
bility. The identified instability situation, which is occurring as
substantial deviation of WT converter’s frequency from grid
fundamental frequency, is named as loss of synchronism (LOS)
in this paper.
Outcome of this paper helps the WPPs to comply with the
stringent zero voltage ride-through and reactive current injec-
tion requirements of the grid codes and consequently helping to
sustain power system stability with high share of wind power;
via exploring, identifying and theoretically analyzing a previ-
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 29, NO. 4, JULY 2014
MVA).
ously omitted instability problem of grid-connected converters,
and also proposing a novel stability solution. Moreover, aware-
ness is provided for the practical phenomenon related to the
zero voltage ride-through and reactive current injection require-
ments, which is underestimated in the existing grid codes. In ad-
dition to approaching a timely issue related to recent grid codes
and handling a practical problem, this paper also stands as a
general reference for current-controlled converters’ active and
reactive current transfer limits, which is introduced in the third
section.
II. IDENTIFIED PROBLEM: LOSS OF SYNCHRONISM (LOS)
Structure of a generic WPP, which is utilized in this paper,
is shown in Fig. 3. The WPP, which has a rating of 100 MW,
is aggregated as a single WT. The grid synchronization and
active/reactive current control action are performed at the low
voltage side of the WT transformer. The impedance between
the WT terminal and the PCC, which is composed of the WT
transformer, equivalent of the collector grid, and the WPP main
transformer, has a total magnitude of 0.21 pu and X/R of 8. This
impedance, which plays an important role, is represented as Z
( pu), whose angle is 83 [tan (X/R)].
The main grid is represented with its Thevenin equivalent with
an impedance of 0.14 pu and X/R of 10. The machine side of
WT is represented as a constant power source since these parts
have slow dynamics compared to the short duration of the faults
[4]. The current control is based on a synchronous frame pro-
portional-integral (PI) regulator [1], and tuned to reach a band-
width complying with the stringent 10 ms rise time requirement
of ENTSO-E grid code. The utilized grid synchronization al-
gorithm, a generic synchronous frame PI based PLL is shown
in Fig. 4 [1]. As well-known, a frequency signal is calculated
within the PLL, which is the frequency of the measured phase
voltages at the WT terminal and also the generated phase volt-
ages at the converter output. In practice, saturation limits are
applied to the calculated PLL frequency, (e.g., Hz
and Hz), which are set close to the fundamental fre-
quency value and wide enough to allow frequency excursions
for sufficient angle tracking performance during transients [14].
Accordingly, an anti-windup scheme is applied to the integrator
of the PI regulator within the PLL. In order to observe dynamic
changes substantially during LOS events, saturation limits are
not applied to the calculated frequency in this section; whereas,
the simulation results for the case with the saturation limits are
shown in third section.
The WPP and the grid in Fig. 3 are modeled in SimPower-
Systems toolbox of Matlab/Simulink and a severe fault, where
the voltage at the PCC drops to 2% of the rated, is created as a
GÖKSU et al.: INSTABILITY OF WIND TURBINE CONVERTERS DURING CURRENT INJECTION
Fig. 4. Generic PLL structure.
Fig. 5. Case-1: LOS—Frequency Fall. (a) PCC bus phase voltages. (b) WT
active and reactive current reference and measured values. (c)
WT terminal phase voltages. (d) WT phase currents. (e) WT PLL frequency.
solid fault at the PCC with fault resistance of 1.5 . The fault
is created at s and cleared after 400 ms. In the simula-
tions, any tripping or protection scheme is not employed for the
WPP. Based on the conventional method given in the introduc-
tion, during very low (close to zero) voltage faults, WT has ref-
erences as 1 pu reactive current and a non-specific magnitude
of active current. Results for two severe fault cases are given
below.
1) Case-1 pu, pu: In case-1,
whose results are given in Fig. 5, the WT is referenced to inject 1
pu pure reactive current during the fault, i.e., zero active current,
as seen in Fig. 5(b) ( pu;
pu, ). In this case, the WT frequency, which is the
frequency of the voltage at the WT terminals, calculated by the
PLL, drops close to 0 Hz during the fault, as seen in Fig. 5(e).
In other words, frequency of the voltage and current generated
by the WT drop to 0 Hz as seen in Fig. 5(c) and (d). This event
is named as LOS—frequency fall.
2) Case-2 pu, pu: In case-2,
whose results are given in Fig. 6 below, the WT is referenced to
inject 1 pu reactive current and also 0.65 pu active current, as
seen in Fig. 6(b) (
pu, ). In this case of high active current injection, the
frequency of the voltage at the WT terminal increases towards
1685
Fig. 6. Case-2: LOS—Frequency Rise. (a) PCC bus phase voltages. (b) WT
active and reactive current reference and measured values. (c)
WT terminal phase voltages. (d) WT phase currents. (e) WT PLL frequency.
TABLE I
SUMMARY OF FAULT SIMULATION RESULTS
very high values, such as 150 Hz, as seen in Fig. 6(e); and sim-
ilarly the WT voltage and current, as seen in Fig. 6(c) and (d).
This event is named as LOS—frequency rise.
It is interesting (but verified also with experiments in the fol-
lowing parts) that even though the frequency at the faulted point
(PCC) and the main grid are still around 50 Hz during fault [as
seen in Figs. 5(a) and 6(a)], the voltage and current generated by
the WT deviate substantially from 50 Hz. The WPP side of the
network behaves like out-of-synchronism and “isolated” from
the main grid side.
It is observed in three more fault cases, which are not shown
here due to the space limitations, that the LOS do not occur; if
the current injection is kept as zero during the fault, or if the
current is injected as having the same angle of the impedance
Z (between WT and PCC) such that
( pu, ), or if the remaining PCC voltage
during fault is not close to zero (e.g., 25% of the rated). Sum-
mary of the total five cases are given in Table I. As observed
in Figs. 5 and 6, because of the LOS the WT cannot restore to
stable operation even after the fault is cleared.
As will be shown in the next section, during LOS the PLL
angle estimation becomes erroneous which implies incorrect
active and reactive (vector) current control. Hence in practice,
1686 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 29, NO. 4, JULY 2014

Fig. 7. (a) PCC and WT voltage and current phasors. (b) Limit current case. Fig. 8. Out of transfer limit situation for .

LOS creates a high risk of tripping of the WPP, which might be

due to reasons as loss of current control, or frequency protection
settings. It will be shown in the next section that the LOS is ob-
served also when the saturation limits (e.g., Hz and
Hz) are applied to the WT PLL frequency signal.

III. THEORETICAL ANALYSIS OF LOS PROBLEM

It is observed in the previous section that the LOS is occurring
when the remaining voltage at the PCC bus is close to zero and
the WT current characteristics (active and reactive ratio) is not
in accordance with the characteristics of the impedance Z. The
understanding to this situation can be given as follows: During a
severe fault at PCC, WT is referenced to inject active and reac-
tive currents over Z, which is a resistive-inductive (RL) path. If
the reactive and active current references are not having a ratio
close to the X/R ratio of the resistive-inductive path (the angle
of Z), the LOS can occur.
A. Active and Reactive Current Transfer Limits
In classical power system studies the active and reactive
power flow between two buses is obtained as a function of
sending and receiving end bus voltage magnitudes and phase
angle between them; from where the well-known power-angle
equation is derived. However, in case of power electronics
based converter applications, basically active and reactive
currents are controlled at the sending end (WT), and the grid
voltage magnitude at the receiving end (PCC) is constant.
Hence, in order to reach the operating point phasor solution
of the WT bus and PCC bus voltages with controlled current
injection from the WT, an approach similar to the one in [13]
is utilized, as shown in Fig. 7. The PCC voltage , which
has constant magnitude and is very low during fault, is shown
with a circle with radius equal to its magnitude. Since active
and reactive currents are controlled with reference to , the
voltage is located on the horizontal reference axis, and
the controlled current phasor, , with current angle with
respect to , is as shown in Fig. 7(a). For that current phasor,
the voltage phasor on the impedance, , has fixed angle
with respect to as . Then, and phasors
are determined via locating the phasor such that the tip of
the is on the circle and the end of the is on the
reference axis, while keeping the angle of fixed at . (Z) magnitudes; and the angle of the band depending on
In Fig. 7(a), such a solution is obtained for a WT current with
angle . In Fig. 7(b), the operating point with the WT current
with the same angle, , but larger magnitude is obtained. It is
important to observe that the current magnitude in Fig. 7(b) is
the limit magnitude for that current injection angle, . If the
Fig. 9. Active and reactive current transfer limits (pu).
magnitude becomes larger than in Fig. 7(b), the magnitude of
the becomes larger as expected. However, with this large
magnitude of and its fixed angle with respect to
, as shown in Fig. 8; the tip of the phasor cannot intersect
with the circle. This implies that a larger is required,
which means that there is not any operating point with
for that angle.
The equation of the current magnitude limit as a function of
the and is obtained as in (1) via solving the limit
case in Fig. 7(b). Similarly solving for the maximum limit of
the current magnitude for all injection angles, i.e., from 0 to
360 with active and reactive current combinations, the current
transfer limits in Fig. 9 is obtained. It should be noted that for
active and reactive power consumption cases, the WT voltage
decreases to zero when the limit is reached:
(1)
As seen in Fig. 9, the current transfer limits is a band with
the width depending on the PCC voltage and impedance
of the impedance. As explained above, for
any current outside this limit area, a valid operating point does
not exist. The related limit values for the severe fault case of
the previous section ( pu and pu)
are imposed to Fig. 9 as values in parentheses. The points
GÖKSU et al.: INSTABILITY OF WIND TURBINE CONVERTERS DURING CURRENT INJECTION
Fig. 10. Wind turbine voltage as superposition of two sources [15].
designated as 1 and 2 in Fig. 9 represent the current references
in fault cases 1 and 2 respectively in Figs. 5 and 6, which were
causing LOS.
B. Stability Analysis of PLL During Low Voltage Faults
As observed in previous results, if a current reference out of
the current transfer limits is given, LOS occurs; and during the
LOS event, the PLL fails to track the main grid fundamental
frequency. In order to analyze dynamics of the PLL, the large-
signal stability analysis in [15], which was specifically devel-
oped for weak-grid connection studies, is utilized here for the
fault study. The analysis is based on the aggregated WPP in
Fig. 3 and the generic PLL structure in Fig. 4. Based on the
separation principle the voltage at the WT terminal can be
obtained as superposition of two sources; the grid side (faulted
point) voltage , and the WT’s own current injection; as
shown in Fig. 10.
The voltage, which is the feedback to the PLL, can be
written as composition of two voltages as in (2)–(4):
- - (2)
- (3)
- (4)
As well-known and also shown in Fig. 4, the q-axis compo-
nent of the WT voltage is the error input of the PI compensator
within the PLL. The q-axis component can be written in terms
of the q-axis components of the two sources from (3) and (4)
above as in (5)–(7) below, where is the phase difference be-
tween PCC and WT bus voltages:
(5)
(6)
(7)
The quasi-stationary model of the PLL based on (5)–(7) is given
in Fig. 11.
As seen in Fig. 11, the feedback sourcing from the PCC
voltage in (5) provides the necessary negative feedback
for the PLL to track the grid phase angle, . However, the
feedback sourcing from the WT’s own current injection
in (6) behaves as a positive feedback, which can be considered
as a disturbance to the stability of the PLL. The large-signal
1687
Fig. 11. Quasi-stationary model of the PLL [15].
stability of the PLL requires a negative feedback magnitude
larger than the positive feedback as given in (8) and (9):
(8)
(9)
The constraint for current magnitude providing large-signal
stability can be written as in (10) for equal to :
(10)
The large-signal stability limit in (10) is observed to be the
same as the current transfer limits (1), which implies that any
current reference outside the transfer limits drives the PLL into
large-signal instability, as LOS. As also seen in (10), large-
signal stability depends on the current injection angle , such
that injection angle close to the impedance angle re-
duces the positive feedback component towards zero,
broadening the stability limit. Additionally, the circle around
the origin in Fig. 9 and also (10) show that, when the current
magnitude is smaller than , stability is provided. In other
words, if the voltage drop on the impedance Z due to WT’s own
current injection is smaller than the voltage, there is no
risk of LOS. Assuming the WT current injection magnitude as
1 pu, the LOS risk exists for the faults with PCC voltage less
than the magnitude of the impedance Z (e.g., 0.2 pu).
In Fig. 12, simulation results are given for the severe fault
case-2 (from Section II) with the PLL saturation limits applied
as Hz and Hz. The error component
of the PLL is shown to be non-zero during the fault, which im-
plies incorrect angle estimation due to LOS and the WT fre-
quency deviates to 60 Hz limit. In practice, even with the limited
PLL frequency, the risk of tripping still exists due to the incor-
rect angle estimation, which results in loss of active and reactive
current control, and due to the frequency protection settings.
IV. PROPOSED SOLUTION: PLL FREQUENCY
BASED ACTIVE CURRENT INJECTION
As summary of the previous analysis, three main reasons trig-
gering the LOS are listed as follows:
1) severe fault occurring nearby PCC with remaining voltage
close to zero (e.g., less than 20% of the rated);
2) grid codes’ reactive current injection requirement during
faults, including zero voltage faults;
3) active and reactive current (vector) control with references
generated by the conventional method, without consid-
ering the impedance angle, i.e., the current transfer limits.
In [16]–[19], focusing on weak-grid connection of WTs, in-
stability situations similar to LOS are proposed to be solved by
1688
Fig. 12. Case-2’: LOS—Frequency Rise with PLL Saturation. (a) PCC bus
phase voltages. (b) WT active and reactive current reference
sured values. (c) WT terminal phase-a voltage and current. (d) WT ter-
minal d and q normalized voltages in PLL. (e) WT PLL frequency.
fast detection of the instability and immediate cease or decrease
of the power or current injection. Such a solution with reduced
or zero current injection during faults can help to avoid LOS;
however, do not comply with the grid codes. The solution pro-
posed in [13], which is the only existing study covering the LOS
during faults, is to decrease the active current injection in accor-
dance with the voltage drop. Such a solution can help for cases
with high active current reference (e.g., case-2 above); however
can fail when pure reactive current is referenced (e.g., case-1
above). Another straightforward way to avoid LOS is to inject
active and reactive currents in accordance with the angle of the
impedance, as equal to R/X. In [6]–[9], current
injection based on X/R is proposed with the aim of improving
the grid support by WPPs without aiming to avoid LOS. Never-
theless, injecting in accordance with the X/R of the impedance
can help to avoid LOS. However, the need to obtain or estimate
the precise X/R value brings practical difficulties.
In this paper a closed loop control method based on PLL fre-
quency is proposed as solution to avoid LOS, while complying
with the grid codes’ reactive current injection during very low
voltage grid faults. The PLL frequency based method utilizes
the PLL frequency signal as a feedback to detect any LOS and
regulates the active current reference accordingly to avoid LOS,
as shown in Fig. 13. The reactive current reference is set pri-
marily as required by the grid codes [2], [3]. The active current
reference is generated by the conventional algo-
rithm; and the frequency regulator acts in parallel to regulate it
such that the resultant current reference is kept within the cur-
rent transfer limits avoiding LOS. The frequency compensator
is designed as a PI compensator. The frequency feedback,
calculated by the PLL in Fig. 4, is compared with a reference
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 29, NO. 4, JULY 2014
Fig. 13. Proposed PLL frequency based active current injection algorithm.
Fig. 14. Current profile with proposed PLL frequency based method.
and mea-
which can be used as the rated (e.g., 50 Hz) or prefault fre-
quency. In practice, a deadband (e.g., mHz) can be applied
to the frequency error, to guarantee that the controller does not
act for small frequency deviations. In the algorithm, in Fig. 13,
the resultant current magnitude is calculated and the references
are scaled down if the resultant magnitude exceeds the capacity
of the WT.
The resultant active and reactive current profile with the PLL
frequency based active current injection is shown in Fig. 14. As
seen in the figure, the active current is adjusted to be within a
band with the decreasing voltage, which in turn keeps the cur-
rent references inside the current transfer limit band of Fig. 9. In
Fig. 15, simulation result of the PLL frequency based method
is shown for the severe fault case-1 (Fig. 5) from Section II. As
seen in Fig. 14(a), during the fault active current reference is
generated by the PLL frequency based algorithm and the fre-
quency is kept stable around 50 Hz without LOS. It should be
noted in Fig. 15 that; with additional active current injection,
the total current increases over 1 pu. In case the capacity of the
WT is not larger than 1 pu, then the reactive current magnitude
needs to be scaled down to create capacity for the necessary ac-
tive current.
V. EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATION OF LOS PROBLEM
AND PLL FREQUENCY BASED SOLUTION
In this section, a grid-connected converter, which is repre-
senting an aggregated WPP and injecting active and reactive
currents during a low voltage fault, is experimentally inves-
tigated. The small-scale (2 kW) dSpace controlled three-level
converter and the impedance, which is inserted to emulate the
impedance between the WT and PCC, are shown in Fig. 16. The
impedance has magnitude of 0.04 pu (
GÖKSU et al.: INSTABILITY OF WIND TURBINE CONVERTERS DURING CURRENT INJECTION
Fig. 15. Simulation results with PLL frequency based method. (a) WT active
and reactive current reference and measured values. (b) WT
terminal phase-a voltage and current. (c) WT PLL frequency.
Fig. 16. Experimental small-scale grid-connected setup.
Fig. 17. Experimental results with conventional algorithm. (a) WT active and
reactive current reference and measured values. (b) WT ter-
minal phase-a voltage and current. (c) WT PLL frequency.
pu) with a low X/R ratio of 2. The fault is created at the PCC
point as a zero voltage dip by using the autotransformer.
First, the problematic case-1 (Fig. 5) from Section II with
pure reactive current injection is performed to observe LOS ex-
perimentally. As seen in Fig. 17, if pure reactive current refer-
ence is generated during the severe fault, then the WT frequency
and also the frequency of the generated voltage and current fall
towards 0 Hz. In the experiments, the PCC voltage is not re-
stored back to rated, since there is the risk of damage after losing
current control capability because of the LOS.
In Fig. 18, the results with the implementation of the PLL
frequency based active current injection algorithm are shown.
1689
Fig. 18. Experimental results with PLL frequency based algorithm. (a) WT
active and reactive current reference and measured values.
(b) WT terminal phase-a voltage and current. (c) WT PLL frequency.
As seen in Fig. 18(a), the active current is generated as 0.5 pu by
the PLL frequency based algorithm, as required by the X/R ratio
of 2 and 1 pu reactive current. In Fig. 18(c) the WT frequency
is observed to be kept stable at 50 Hz.
As given in the theoretical analysis and also observed in the
results, certain amount of active current is required to accom-
pany 1 pu reactive current injection to severe faults. Hence, in
case the available active power generation level of the WT (or
WPP) is not enough due to low wind conditions, then the re-
quired reactive current might not be injected.
VI. FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS
The rate of deviation of frequency during LOS depends on
factors such as the PLL and current controller gains, and the
fault level. For instance, for the severe fault case-1 (Fig. 5) from
Section II, the frequency deviates down to 0 Hz within the fault
duration of 400 ms, which is intentionally kept long in order to
observe a substantial deviation. In practice, with a smaller fault
clearing time (e.g., 100 ms), the frequency proportionally devi-
ates less. However, successful restoration of the WT to normal
operation after the LOS depends on many factors such as trip-
ping mechanism and protection settings of the WT and WPP,
fault level, operating point and grid characteristics, which can
be considered as a separate study.
It is shown that a current reference out of transfer limits
causes large-signal instability for the WT. However, a current
reference inside the current transfer limits band but close
to the limits can also cause small-signal instability problem
depending on the controller gains, fault level and grid charac-
teristics, which is not covered in this study. For instance in [20],
a small-signal instability situation of a weak-grid connected
converter is proposed to be solved by reducing the PLL gains,
compromising the dynamic transient performance.
The LOS has not been observed for asymmetrical faults since
the positive sequence voltage drop is not severe during these
faults. However, it is worth analyzing low-frequency dynamic
stability of WTs under unbalanced grid conditions.
1690
VII. CONCLUSION
In this paper, low-frequency dynamic stability of WTs’ grid
side converters during current injection to very low voltage grid
faults is investigated. It is shown that when 1 pu reactive current,
which is required by the grid codes, is injected together with
non-specific amount of active current during very low voltage
(e.g., less than 10% of the rated) faults, WTs can lose their syn-
chronism with the grid fundamental frequency (e.g., 50 Hz).
This instability situation, which has been omitted in the previous
wind power studies and grid code revisions, is demonstrated by
both simulations and experiments, and theoretically analyzed;
and named as LOS. It is shown that the WTs experience LOS
during severe faults, where the grid voltage at the PCC of the
WPP is dropping close to zero, and if the ratio of the reac-
tive and active current references is not close to the X/R ratio
of the impedance between the WT and the faulted point (e.g.,
PCC). The related active and reactive current transfer limits,
which constitute the currents that can be injected without LOS,
are derived for the first time in this paper. The analysis of the
LOS problem and the current transfer limits also stand as a gen-
eral reference for stability and control of grid-connected cur-
rent-controlled converter applications, especially for weak-grid
connected wind turbine or HVDC converters.
A novel stability method, PLL frequency based active cur-
rent injection algorithm, is proposed and shown to solve the
LOS problem via injecting necessary amount of active current
based on the PLL frequency feedback; and verified by simula-
tions and also experiments on a small-scale grid-connected con-
verter setup.
The LOS problem introduced in this paper, and the derived
active and reactive current transfer limits provide insight for
grid connection of the current-controlled converters and also
for future revisions of the grid codes, in order to provide stable
power system operation with high share of wind power.
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Ömer Göksu (S’07) was born in Izmir, Turkey,
in 1982. He received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees
in electrical and electronics engineering from the
Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara,
Turkey, in 2004 and 2008, respectively, and the Ph.D.
degree from the Department of Energy Technology,
Aalborg University, Denmark, in 2012.
He was employed as a systems engineer in Aselsan
Inc. from 2004 to 2009 during his M.Sc. and as a re-
searcher from 2009 to 2012 during his Ph.D. under
the Vestas Power Program. His research interest in-
cludes grid connection of wind power, wind turbine control, power electronics,
integration of power electronics to power systems, and electrical motor drives.
Remus Teodorescu (S’94–A’97–M’99–SM’02–
F’12) received the Dipl.Ing. degree in electrical engi-
neering from Polytechnical University of Bucharest,
Romania, in 1989, and the Ph.D. degree in power
electronics from University of Galati, Romania, in
1994.
In 1998, he joined Aalborg University, Den-
mark, Department of Energy Technology, power
electronics section where he currently works as a
full professor. Since 2013, he has been a visiting
professor at Chalmers University. He has coauthored
the book Grid Converters for Photovoltaic and Wind Power Systems (New
York, NY, USA: Wiley, 2011) and over 200 IEEE journals and conference
papers. His areas of interests include: design and control of grid-connected
converters for photovoltaic and wind power systems, HVDC/FACTS based on
MMC, SiC-based converters, storage systems for utility based on Li-Ion battery
technology. He was the coordinator of the Vestas Power Program 2008–2013.
GÖKSU et al.: INSTABILITY OF WIND TURBINE CONVERTERS DURING CURRENT INJECTION
Claus Leth Bak (M’94–SM’08) was born in Århus,
Denmark, on April 13, 1965. He received the B.Sc.
degree with honors in electrical power engineering
in 1992 and the M.Sc. degree in electrical power
engineering at the Department of Energy Technology
(ET) at Aalborg University (AAU), Denmark, in
1994.
After his studies, he worked as a professional en-
gineer with Electric Power Transmission and Substa-
tions with specializations within the area of power
system protection at the NV Net Transmission Com-
pany. In 1999 he was employed as an Assistant Professor at ET-AAU, where he
holds a Professor position today. His main research areas include corona phe-
nomena on overhead lines, power system modeling and transient simulations,
underground cable transmission, power system protection and HVDC-VSC off-
shore transmission networks. He is the author/coauthor of approximately 100
publications.
Prof. Bak is a member of Cigré C4.502, Cigré SC C4, and Danish Cigré Na-
tional Committee.
Florin Iov (S’98–M’04–SM’06) received the Dipl.
Eng. degree in electrical engineering from the Uni-
versity of Romania in 1993 and the Ph.D. degree from
Galati University, Romania, in 2003, with a special
focus in the modeling, simulation and control of large
wind turbines.
He was a staff member at Galati University, Ro-
mania, from 1993 to 2001. He was with the Insti-
tute of Energy Technology, Aalborg University, Den-
mark, between 2001 and 2009 where he was involved
mainly in research projects regarding wind turbines
1691
and wind power systems. From 2010 to 2012, he held a position as Power
System Research Specialist in Vestas Wind Systems working with new ancil-
lary services for augmented wind power plants. Since 2013, he has been with
the Institute of Energy Technology focusing on research within smart grids. His
research covers control and application of electrical machines and power elec-
tronic converters for grid integration of renewable energy sources and, operation
and control of dispersed generation in modern power systems. He is author or
co-author of more than 100 journal/conference papers in his research areas.
Philip Carne Kjaer (M’93–SM’11) received the
M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from Aalborg
University, Aalborg, Denmark, in 1993, and the
Ph.D. degree from the University of Glasgow,
Glasgow, U.K., in 1997.
From 1993 to 1998, he was a Research Assistant at
the University of Glasgow, working with advanced
control of switched reluctance machines and drives.
From 1998 to 2003, he was with ABB Corporate
Research, Vasteras, Sweden, where, as a Develop-
ment Engineer, he worked on servo-motor-based
high-voltage circuit breaker drives, factory testing of synchronous machines,
power converters for HVDC power transmission, and multi-megawatt vari-
able-speed drives. Between 2000 and 2003, he also functioned as Department
Manager. In October 2003, he joined Vestas Wind Systems, Arhus, Denmark,
where he currently holds the position as Chief Specialist for power plants. His
research covers control and application of power electronic converters.
Dr. Kjaer is a Chartered Engineer in the U.K., a Member of the Institution of
Electrical Engineers, U.K., member of the Danish national committee of Cigré
and of Cigré study committee B4, and the recipient of the 2004 Richard M. Bass
Outstanding Young Power Electronics Engineer Award.