Proceedings of the 2008 International Conference on Electrical Machines Paper ID 1266

978-1-4244-1736-0/08/$25.00 2008 IEEE 1

Hybrid wind/microhydro power system associated
with a supercapacitor energy storage device
Experimental results

Stefan Breban
1,2
, Mehdi Nasser
1
, Arnaud Vergnol
1
, Benot Robyns
1
, Member, IEEE,
Mircea M. Radulescu
2
, Senior Member, IEEE

1
Laboratoire dElectrotechnique et dElectronique de Puissance (L2EP), Lille, France
Ecole des Hautes Etudes dIngnieur (HEI), 13, rue de Toul, F-59046 Lille Cedex, France
benoit.robyns@hei.fr
2
Special Electric Machines and Light Electric Traction (SEMLET) Group
Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, C. Daicoviciu St., 15, RO-400020 Cluj-Napoca, Romania
mircea.radulescu@mae.utcluj.ro


Abstract- Association of wind power producing units,
microhydro power plants and energy storage systems can ensure
the stability of an islanded week power grid or can increase the
penetration of these renewable energy sources into the large
power networks. Experimental results presented in the paper
demonstrate the effectiveness of this association. The microhydro
power plant consists of a doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG)
linked mechanically and electrically (through back-to-back power
electronic converters in the rotor circuit) to a permanent-magnet
synchronous machine (PMSM). The energy storage device
considered is a supercapacitor connected trough a bidirectional
DC-DC converter to the DC-link of the hydropower station. This
system is associated to a fixed-speed wind generator driven by a
squirrel-cage induction machine.
I. INTRODUCTION
The decision taken by the European Union to increase the
production of electrical energy from renewable sources by
2020 presumes to reduce the use of coal, oil and natural gas in
energy production processes, and to replace them with
renewable energy conversion systems, as small hydropower
plants or wind power units. These two energy sources have yet
a great potential of development, being capable to compete
with the classical thermal power stations.
Hydroelectricity is the most expanded renewable energy
source over the world. Micro hydropower has a quite large
potential of development because of the increasing interest in
renewable energies and dispersed electrical generation. This
type of hydroelectricity ranges from 0 to 10 MW in Europe
where, without accounting for newly integrated countries, the
microhydro capacity is over 11500 MW, representing 1.7 % in
electricity production capacity and 10% of hydroelectric
power. The European growth potential reaches about 6000
MW [1].
Micro hydropower stations are nowadays based on a fixed-
speed synchronous machine or a squirrel-cage induction
generator. In both configurations, no use is made of power
electronic devices. In the first case, speed is necessarily fixed;
in the second one, speed may vary in a small range according
to active power demand changes, if the station is grid-
connected, or the additional capacitor and load equivalent
impedance variations, if the induction machine supplies a
passive network, i.e. the station is islanded. For both
generators, the turbine rate of flow regulation allows supplying
the necessary active power, and controlling the frequency
when the station is connected to isolated loads [2].
The wind generators are in the same power limits as
microhydro power plants. The produced power is variable and
not easily predictable from one day to another. Here, a fixed-
speed wind generator is considered. This is due to the fact that
on experimental conditions only one power converter is needed
to control a permanent-magnet synchronous machine (PMSM)
that emulates the rotating blades. Nevertheless, the future
belongs to variable-speed drives, and this solution can easily be
integrated in the hybrid power system.
Short-term energy storage using supercapacitors is
developing nowadays because of the greater energy density in
comparison to flywheel energy storage.
II. SYSTEM UNDER STUDY
Fig. 1 shows the microhydro power station associated to a
fixed-speed wind generator considered in this study. The
supercapacitor energy storage device is connected to the DC-
link of the hydro power station. This implies that PWM
Converter 1 has to be designed according to the power flow to
and from the supercapacitor [5]. The PWM Converter 1
controls the DC-link voltage, and so the DC-DC bidirectional
converter regulates the power absorbed or delivered by the
supercapacitor device. This power is transformed by the
PMSM into mechanical power. The variable-speed microhydro
power plant (including the storage system) has to compensate
the fluctuating wind power, when connected to isolated loads.
This is shown experimentally, in this paper, by means of a
3 kW laboratory test bench.
Proceedings of the 2008 International Conference on Electrical Machines
2
A. Variable speed micro-hydro power plant

The micro hydropower station is considered as a run-of-
river one, leading to the use of a Kaplan hydraulic turbine well
suited for low water heads. The turbine drives a doubly-fed
induction generator (DFIG) whose excitation is supplied on its
rotor by a PMSM mounted on the same shaft. Two back-to-
back PWM power electronic converters, connected through a
DC bus, carry out the electric link between the machines.
Converter 1 controls the DC-link voltage, leading to the
balance between the DFIG-rotor active power and the PMSM
one. Converter 2 is dedicated to the control of the DFIG, in
order to achieve operation of this generator on isolated loads
and on a power grid ([2], [3], [4]). It is worthy to notice that
the presented structure is also considered in the field of
aeronautics for aircraft embedded network supplying [7] : the
hydro-power turbine is then replaced by a jet engine.
It may be emphasized that the considered configuration is
different from most common DFIGs, whose rotor windings are
connected, ever through power electronic converters, to stator
ones. This electromechanical set, when compared to classical
structures used in micro hydroelectric power plants, features
several interesting characteristics, i.e. it can operate in an
autonomous way due to the PMSM allowing the DC-link
capacitor stand-alone charging when the system starts; power
electronic converters increase the plant control possibilities
(e.g. additional capacitors used in squirrel-cage induction
machines are no more necessary), and dynamics, as they
replace mechanical controls; converter and PMSM rated
powers are only around 30% of the plant rated power,
representing the typical average slip power [6].
References [2] and [4] develop the structured model of the
system connected to isolated loads, where the DFIG stator
voltage and frequency are controlled.

B. Hydropower turbine model

As mentioned above, a Kaplan turbine is considered in this
paper. It is referred to a fixed head and a constant water flow.
It is assumed that water flow variations are very slow
compared to the drive dynamics. The turbine model is a basic
one, i.e. it includes neither blade pitch control nor upstream
guide vane one. According to these assumptions, hydro-power
turbine behaviour may be taken into account by means of
simplified static mechanical characteristics, represented in
Fig.2 for a fixed rate of flow.
Turbine torque (T
t
) vs. speed () characteristic is assumed
to be a straight line. Torque becomes null for a rotating speed
value
e
, which is the runaway speed, i.e. speed when no-load
torque is applied on the shaft.
e
is a turbine parameter, and a
value of 1.8 times the turbine rated speed
n
is assumed [4].
Torque vs. speed characteristic equation under rated water flow
and head can thus be written as

=
n
n t
T T 8 . 1 , (1)
where subscript "n" is used for rated values.
Mechanical power (P
mec
) simplified characteristic is,
consequently, a parabola. Taking into account the water wheel
efficiency depending on the rate of flow and on the rotating
speed, this power results from the hydro power (P
hyd
) which is
expressed as follows:
q gH P
hyd
= . (2)








0
n

e
0
n

e
Mechanical
power
Rotating speed
Torque
0
n

e
0
n

e
Mechanical
power
Rotating speed
Torque


Fig.2. Hydro power turbine torque and mechanical power vs. rotating speed,
for given water flow.
Fixed-Speed
Wind Generator
Variable-Speed Micro
Hydropower Station




Isolated
loads

Bus
PWM 1 PWM 2
Super-
capacitors
DC-DC Converter
Fig. 1. Hybrid wind/microhydro system under study.
PMSM
DFIG
IG
Proceedings of the 2008 International Conference on Electrical Machines
3

Fig. 3. Power coefficient.

C. Fixed-speed wind generator
For the fixed-speed turbine, the induction generator (IG) is
directly connected to the isolated loads, according to Fig. 1.
The squirrel-cage IG is a 4-pole machine, and the necessary
reactive power for its magnetization is absorbed from the
hydropower station.
The shaft mechanical power is assumed to follow the C
p
()
curve shown in Fig. 3, where C
p
is the power coefficient, and
is the speed ratio.
III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
Fig. 4 shows the bench structure built to validate the solution
proposed in this paper. The microhydro power system is
composed of a hydraulic turbine emulator, based on a torque-
controlled DC machine, a PMSM and a 3 kW (4 poles) doubly-
fed induction machine, mechanically coupled to the DC
machine and the PMSM. Two converters make the link
between the DFIG rotor and the PMSM. Power converters
components switches are controlled by dSPACE
TM
cards. As
DFIG stator and rotor coils are star-connected with neutral
point isolated, measuring two stator and two rotor currents is
necessary and sufficient. Rotor currents are as well useful to
compute rotor fluxes. Stator instantaneous voltage value is also
measured to calculate the active and reactive powers
transmitted by the generator to isolated loads, to perform RMS
value and frequency regulation [4]. The supercapacitors are
connected via a DC-DC converter to the DC bus of
hydropower emulator. The DFIG is driven by a torque-
controlled PMSM.














Fig. 5. Fixed-speed wind generator active power.
















Fig. 6. Variable-speed microhydro active power (PDFIG).













Fig. 7. Isolated load power consumption.













Fig. 8. Supercapacitor power.




















Fig. 9. Reactive power absorbed by the IG.


Proceedings of the 2008 International Conference on Electrical Machines
4
















Fig. 10. DFIG rotating speed.

















Fig. 11. DC-link voltage.
















Fig. 12. Load phase voltage.













Fig. 13. Load voltage frequency.
DCM
PMSM
PWM
CONVERTER 1
PWM
CONVERTER 2
DFIG
Measurement
Control

Shaft
PMSM
IG
Shaft
dSPACE Controller Board DS 1104
DCM DCM
Hydro-power turbine emulator
PWM PWM
CONVERTER 2
Wind-power turbine emulator


Fig. 4. Schematic of the experimental test bench.
dSPACE Controller Board DS 1103
dSPACE Controller
Board DS 1104

Isolated
Loads
DC-DC
Converter
Supercapacitors
Proceedings of the 2008 International Conference on Electrical Machines
5














Fig. 14. Supercapacitor measured voltage.

Tests are performed over an interval of 300 seconds. The
hybrid system is connected to a staircase variable resistive
load, as shown in Fig. 7. The load line-to-line reference voltage
is 225 V rms, i.e. 130 V phase voltage (Fig. 12). The water rate
of flow is considered constant for this interval of time, because
its time variance has a scale of hours or days. The PMSM
driving the IG was submitted to a variable wind measured in
the region of Dunkerque.
Fig. 5 shows the output power of the fixed-speed wind
generator. The hydropower system including the
supercapacitor device has to compensate these fluctuations.
The reference power of the storage system (P
ref_storage
) was
calculated using the relation




P
ref_storage
= P
max_hydro
P
DFIG ,
(3)

where P
max_hydro
is the maximum power for the available water
rate of flow, P
DFIG
being the power delivered by the DFIG.
Fig. 6 demonstrates the capability of the microhydro power
system, together with the supercapacitor energy storage device,
to compensate the power variations produced by the fixed-
speed IG. It should be noted that the energy consumed or
produced by the supercapacitors is flowing through the PMSM
and so is transformed from and to mechanical power available
at the shaft.
In Fig. 7 the total power absorbed by the resistive load is
presented. The low frequency ripples on that curve are
generated by the electromagnetic interferences that affect the
current probe used to measure the load currents.
The supercapacitor pack is charging and discharging (Fig. 8)
as required, contributing to the increase of the available power
resource, and permitting to use more effectively the water
reserve. The power flow to and from the supercapacitor pack is
limited to 250 W in order to avoid the instabilities on the DC-
link circuit. In Fig. 14, the evolution of the supercapacitor
voltage is shown; as the energy storage device is charging, the
voltage is rising, and when discharging, the voltage is
decreasing. In our application the supercapacitor pack is
considered charged when his voltage reaches 42 V and
discharged at 26 V.
The reactive power necessary to magnetize the squirrel-cage
IG, provided by the hydropower station, is depicted in Fig. 9
This could be considered an advantage, as no compensating.
capacitors are necessary to be connected to the stator of the IG.
In Fig. 10, the rotating speed of the hydropower assembly is
presented. It can be observed, that DFIG is working in hyper-
synchronism as well as in hypo-synchronism. This allows a
really wide-speed spectrum, and has as an advantage the
possibility to function on any point of the turbine mechanical
characteristic.
On the DC-link side, the PWM Converter 1 connected to
PMSM stator is keeping the DC-link voltage to the reference
value, i.e. 200 V (Fig. 11).
Figs. 12 and 13 are indicating the parameters of the load
voltage. The voltage rms and frequency are satisfactorily kept
around their rated reference values.

IV. CONCLUSIONS
A hybrid wind/microhydro associated with a supercapacitor
energy storage device was studied. The supercapacitor is
connected to the DC-link of a variable-speed microhydro
power station, allowing the increase of the maximum available
power of the system, when connected to isolated loads. This
power system was tested on the experimental laboratory rig,
and the results confirm the system capability to feed isolated
loads by keeping the voltage rms and frequency to their rated
values.

V. APPENDIX
a) DFIG Parameters
Rated power: 3kW (220/380 V, 50 Hz);
Number of poles: 2p=4;
Stator resistance: R
S
= 1.6 ;
Rotor resistance: R
R
= 0.4 ;
Magnetizing inductance: M = 55 mH;
Stator inductance: L
S
= 150 mH;
Rotor inductance: L
R
= 23 mH;
Inertia: J= 0.01 kgm
2
.

b) IG Parameters
Rated power: 3kW (220/380 V, 50 Hz);
Number of poles: 2p=4;
Stator resistance: R
S
= 0.75 ;
Magnetizing inductance: M = 78 mH;
Stator inductance: L
S
= 81 mH;
Rotor inductance: L
R
= 81 mH;
Inertia: J= 0.0085 kgm
2
.

c) PMSM Parameters
Rated power: 2.87kW (3000 rpm);
Proceedings of the 2008 International Conference on Electrical Machines
6
Number of poles: 2p=6;
Stator resistance: R
S
= 0.94 ;
Direct-axis inductance: L
d
= 14.4 mH;
Quadrature-axis inductance: L
q
= 25 mH;
Back-emf coefficient: K
e
= 0.78Vsrad
-1
;
Inertia: J= 0.0014 kgm
2
.

d) Supercapacitor storage device
Capacitance: C = 165F;
Rated voltage: U = 48.6 V;
Energy storage capacity (charging from 26V to 42V):
E = 100.000 J.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported in part by the Romanian Ministry
of Education, Research and Youth (Grant RO-CNCSIS
No. 421/2007) and ENSAM de Lille.
The test bench development has benefited from the financial
support of Regional Council Nord-Pas de Calais, European
Union, Technological Research National Center of Lille,
Forclum Ingenierie Verquin, Innovelect and HEI de Lille.































REFERENCES
[1] Renewable energy barometer Eurobserv'ER ; www.energies-
renouvelables.org
[2] A. Ansel, B. Robyns, Small hydroelectricity: from fixed to variable
speed electromechanical drive, Electromotion, vol.13, n2, 2006.
[3] S. Breban, A. Ansel, M. Nasser, B. Robyns, M.M. Radulescu,
Experimental results for a variable speed small hydro power station
feeding isolated loads or connected to power grid, Proc. ACEMP-
ELECTROMOTION 2007 Joint Conf., Bodrum, Turkey, pp. 760-765.
[4] S. Breban, M. Nasser, A. Ansel, C. Saudemont, B. Robyns, M. Radulescu,
Variable Speed Small Hydro Power Plant Connected to AC Grid or
Isolated Loads, EPE Journal, Vol. 17, No. 4, 2007, pp. 29 36.
[5] C. Abbey, G. Joos, Supercapacitor Energy Storage for Wind Energy
Applications, IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, Vol. 43,
No. 3, 2007, pp. 769-776.
[6] C.R. Kelber, W. Schumacher, Adjustable-speed constant-frequency
energy generation with doubly-fed induction machines, European
Conference Variable Speed in Small Hydro - VSSHy 2000, Grenoble,
France.
[7] F. Khatounian, E. Monmasson, F. Berthereau, E. Delaleau and J.P. Louis,
Control of a Doubly Fed Induction Generator for Aircraft Application,
IECON 2003, Roanoke, Virginia, United States, 2-6 november 2003, pp.
2709-2714.