Graduation Semester and Year

2009

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical Engineering

Department

Electrical Engineering

First Advisor

Wei-Jen Lee

Abstract

Inherent difficulties in management of electric power in the presence of an increasing demand for more energy, non-conventional loads such as digital appliances, and non-sustainable imported fossil fuels has initiated a multi-folded effort by many countries to restructure the way electric energy is generated, dispatched, and consumed. Smart power grid is the manifestation of many technologies that would eventually transforms the existing power grid into a more flexible, fault resilient, and intelligent system. Integration of distributed renewable energy sources plays a central role in successful implementation of this transformation. Among the renewable options, wind energy harvesting offers superior engineering and economical incentives with minimal environmental impacts. Doubly fed induction generators (DFIG) have turned into a serious contender for wind energy generators due to their flexibility in control of active and reactive power with minimal silicon loss. Significant presence of voltage unbalance and system harmonics in finite inertia transmission lines can potentially undermine the reliability of these wind generators. The present dissertation has investigated the impacts of system unbalances and harmonics on the performance of the DFIG. Our investigation indicates that these effects can result in an undesirable undulation in the rotor shaft which can potentially invoke mechanical resonance, thereby causing catastrophic damages to the installations and the power grid. In order to remedy the above issue, a control solution for real time monitoring of the system unbalance and optimal excitation of the three phase rotor currents in a DFIG is offered. The optimal rotor currents will create appropriate components of the magneto-motive force in the airgap that will actively compensate the undesirable magnetic field originated by the stator windings. Due to the iterative nature of the optimization procedure, field reconstruction method has been incorporated. Field reconstruction method provides high precision results at a considerably faster pace as compared to finite element method. Our results indicate that by just-in-time detection of the system unbalance and employment of the optimal rotor currents damaging torque pulsation can be effectively eliminated. The side effects of the proposed method in changing the core , copper, and silicon losses are minor and well justified when reliability of the wind generation units are considered.

Disciplines

Electrical and Computer Engineering | Engineering

Comments

Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington

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