Applications of Super Capacitors for PMSG Wind

Turbine Power Smoothing

A. Abedini and A. Nasiri
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, WI 53201-0784, USA
Email: nasiri@uwm.edu

Abstract The focus of this paper is wind power smoothing using
super capacitors. Due to increasing penetration of the wind power
in power system, the quality of the wind power has become a
major concern to keep the stability of the power grid. One of the
major problems of wind turbines is power fluctuations because of
the wind speed oscillations. This paper studies the pros and cons
of the integration of the super capacitors in the Permanent
Magnet Synchronous Generator (PMSG) wind turbine system.
The dynamic of the wind turbine is developed to design a control
algorithm for the wind turbine system. The system is simulated
using PSIM software and the results are presented.

I. INTRODUCTION
The world is seeing an ever-increasing demand for
electrical energy. The future growth of electrical power
generation needs to be a mix of technologies including fossil
fuels, hydro, nuclear, wind, and solar. The federal and state
energy agencies have taken several proactive steps to increase
the share of renewable energy in the total generated electrical
power.
In 2005, 11.1% of the total 1060 GW electricity generation
capacity was from Renewable Energy Sources (RES) in the
US. The power capacity portfolio included 9.2% from
hydroelectric, 0.87% from wind, and 0.7% from biomass.
Other renewable power capacity included 2.8 GW of
geothermal, 0.4 GW of solar thermal, and 0.2 GW of solar PV.
Although the share of renewable energy sources is small
compared with the total power capacity, they are experiencing
a high and steady growth. The US is leading the world in wind
energy growth with a 27% increase in 2006 and a projected
26% increase in 2007, according to the American Wind Energy
Association (AWEA). The US Department of Energy
benchmarked a goal to meet 5% of the nations energy need by
launching the Wind Powering America (WPA) program.
Although renewable energy sources have many benefits,
their utilization in the electrical grid does not come without
cost. The higher penetration of RES has introduced many
technical and non-technical challenges, including power
quality, reliability, safety and protection, load management,
grid interconnections and control, new regulations, and grid
operation economics.
RES such as wind and PV are also intermittent in nature.
The energy from these sources is available as long as there is
wind or sunlight. However, these are energies that are abundant
in the world and the power generated from these sources is
pollution free.
One of the main problems of wind energy is power
fluctuations due to wind speed variations. The wind energy is
not only intermittent but also fluctuates. Therefore, wind power
cannot be dispatched the same as other power sources. Power
fluctuations, in systems with high wind power penetration,
causes frequency deviations in the grid. If the frequency
deviation exceeds a limit, the protection relays will trip that
may cause black out for a part of the power system. Various
methods have been utilized to smooth the wind power in
literature [1-5]. These methods include, using super inductors
[2], using flywheels [3], using batteries [4], and using rotor
inertia [5].
This paper studies the application of super capacitor
integrated with the PMSG wind turbine. PMSG along with
Doubly Fed Induction Generator (DFIG) are the most common
generators that are being used as variable speed wind turbines.
The application of super capacitors is also spreading in all the
industries especially in wind turbine industries.
In this paper, after introduction, the configuration of the
system is explained. In the next section, the dynamic of the
system is modeled. In section IV, the control algorithm is
designed. Simulation results are presented in section V.

II. SYSTEM CONFIGURATION
Figure 1 shows the configuration of the wind turbine
system. In this system after the wind turbine, there is a PMSG.
The wind turbine is directly connected to the PMSG. This
technology (direct driven) is developed recently. However, the
PMSG can be connected to the turbine via the gearbox as well.
The output of the PMSG is rectified using a PWM rectifier.
The super capacitor is connected to the dc link via a booster.
Usually, the super capacitors are in low voltage. However, it is
possible to use super capacitors in series with limited number.
The wind turbine system is connected to the grid using a PWM
inverter. A booster inductor is used between the grid and
inverter to filter out the harmonics of the inverter. This system
offers a variety of control parameters which will be discussed
in the control section.

Figure 1. Wind turbine system configuration integrated with super capacitors.
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III. DYNAMIC MODEL OF THE SYSTEM
In this section the model of each part is described. The
model is used to design the control algorithm.
A. Wind Model
[6] presents various wind speed models. The wind
model which is used in this paper, is described in (1)-(4).
wind
v is the wind speed and
wa
v is the average of the wind
speed,
wr
v is the ramp component of the wind speed given in
(2),
wg
v is wind gust represented by (3) and
wn
v is wind noise
or wind turbulence which is characterized by a power spectral
density given in (4).
r
A and
g
A are the amplitude of the wind ramp and wind gust.
sr
T ,
sg
T ,
er
T and
eg
T are respectively starting time of the wind
ramp and gust, and ending time of the wind ramp and gust.
f is the frequency, h is the height of the wind turbine, l is the
noise or turbulence length and
0
z is the roughness of length.
These parameters are provided by the manufacturer and site
owner of the wind turbine.
wn wg wr wa wind
v v v v v + + + = (1)

=
otherwise
T t T
T T
T t
A
v
er sr
sr er
sr
r
wr
0
) (
) (
(2)

=
otherwise
T t T
T T
T t
A
v
eg sg
sg eg
sg
g
wg
0
))) ( 2 cos( 1 (
(3)
3 / 5 1 2
0
] 5 . 1 1 [ ] ) [ln( ) (

+ =
wa
v D
v
fl
z
h
l f P
wa
(4)
The expectation of this paper is smoothing the power
fluctuations caused by wind gust and wind noise.

B. Wind turbine
Equations (5)-(8) describe the wind turbine model.
Equation (5) shows the output power that can be extracted
from the wind. The coefficients in (5) are given in (6)-(8).
3
2
) , (
wind
v
A
c P

=
(5)

6 4 3
2
2
1
2
5
) ( ) , ( c e c c
c
c c
c
+ =

(6)
1
035 . 0
08 . 0
1 1
3
2
+

+
=

(7)
wind
v
R
=
(8)
Where
3
/ 2 . 1 m kg = is the air density, A is the area swept
by the turbine blades, is the Tip-Speed-Ratio (TSR) that is
given by (8), is the pitch angle, c is performance
coefficient of the turbine given in (6), and is the generator
angular velocity. c
1
-c
6
are coefficients which are dependent on
the structure of the wind turbine.
C. PMSG
Figure 2 shows the d and q axes and the flux direction of
the PMSG. is the angel between the rotor d-axis and the
stator axis. Equation (9) expresses the state space model of the
PMSG used in this paper [7].
The following assumptions are also considered in modeling the
PMSG.
There is no damper winding.
Saturation is negligible.
Eddy-current and hysteresis losses are ignored.
Power losses are considered constant.
Stator
axis
Rotor
q-axis
Rotor
d-axis

Figure 2. d-q axis of a typical rotating machine.

m
ds
qs
ds
qs
s
ds
qs
qs qs ds f
ds
s
ds
qs
s
qs
m
qs
ds
s
qs
s
s
ds
qs
T
v
v
J
P
L
L
i
i
J
BP
i L L
J
P
J
P
L
R
L
L
L L
L
L
R
i
i
2
0 0
0
1
0
0 0
1
2
) (
4
5 . 1
4
5 . 1
0
2 2

(9)
Where
s
R is the stator resistance,
ds
L and
qs
L are the d-q axis
inductances, P is number of poles, J is the rotor inertia,
ds
v and
qs
v are terminal voltage,
ds
i and
qs
i are d and q components of
terminal currents, T
m
is the input mechanical torque of the
wind turbine,
m
is the magnitude of the flux produced by the
permanent magnet.
s
is the electrical rotor speed and is given by (10).
m s
P

2
= (10)
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m
is the mechanical rotor speed.
D. Energy Storage Converter
Figure 3 shows the circuit representation of the energy
storage of Figure 1. A dynamic model for the storage of Figure
3 in which the super capacitors and series inductance are
transferred to the dc-link capacitor side is shown in Figure 4.
Parameter d denotes the duty cycle of switch S1.

Figure 3. Circuit representation of energy storage.

Figure 4. Dynamic model of the energy storage.

E) AC-DC-AC Converter
Figure 5 shows a detailed representation of the back-to-
back converter of the wind energy system of Figure 1. The
converter includes a six-pulse voltage source converter at the
generator side and a six-pulse converter at the grid side. The
generator-side converter changes the generator terminal voltage
to a dc voltage which is converted to a three-phase voltage by
the grid-side converter.

Figure 5. The back-to-back converter configuration.
Figure 6 shows a dynamic model of the back to back
converter of Figure 1. The model shows the dynamic model of
the back-to-back converter in d-q axes. Details related to
development of the dynamic model of Figure 6 are presented in
[8].

(a)

(b)
)] cos(
) sin( [
4
3
i mi qi
i mi di mi
i
i A


+

)] cos(
) sin( [
4
3
o mo qo
o mo do mo
i
i A


+

qi
i
3
2
qo
i
3
2
c
i

(c)
Figure 6. Dynamic model of the AC-DC-AC converter.
In this figure,
smi
v and
smo
v are the input and output
magnitude voltage.
mi
A ,
mo
A ,
mi
and
mo
are the
magnitude and angle modulation and of the rectifier and
inverter.
i
and
o
are the angle of the phase a of input and
output voltage. Equations (11)-(13) show the state space model
of the system.

+
+
=

) sin(
2
1
) cos(
2
1
0
i mi dc mi
i mi dc mi
di
qi
si si i si
i si si si smi
v A
v A
i
i
D L R L
L D L R v

(11)

+
+
=

) sin(
2
1
) cos(
2
1
0
o mo dc mo
o mo dc mo
do
qo
so so o so
o so so so mso
v A
v A
i
i
D L R L
L D L R v

(12)
do di
dc
i i
dt
dv
C
3
2
3
2
= (13)
III. CONTROL ALGORITHM
Figure 7 shows the control techniques used in this paper to
simulate the wind turbine system. There are five control
parameters that control the speed and flux of the generator, the
active power delivered to the grid, dc bus voltage and reactive
power delivered to the grid. As shown, the control system
consists of five separate control loops. The ultra capacitor and
its converter are used to control the output power of the
inverter. They regulate the output power delivered to the grid.
The reference output power of the wind turbine system is
compared with incoming wind power of the generator and if
the output power is more than reference it is stored in the ultra
capacitor and if it is less than it the stored energy in the
3349 978-1-4244-1766-7/08/$25.00 2008
capacitor will release to compensate the lack of the input
power.
C
o
n
t
r
o
l
P
a
r
t
P
o
w
e
r
P
a
r
t
F
i
l
t
e
r
Figure 7. Control techniques for controlling the wind turbine system.
In order to catch the maximum power of the wind, TSR
must be equal to the optimal value. This means that we have to
adjust the speed of the turbine to the optimal value. Equation
(14) shows the optimal value for the speed in order to have the
optimal value for TSR.
R
v
wind opt
mopt

= (14)
Equation (14) (Swing equation) shows the relationship among
speed and other parameters.
dt
d
J B T T
m
m e m

+ + =
(14)
Based on (14) electrical torque can be used to control the
speed of the system. In (15), the relationship of the generators
electrical torque and other generators parameters is given.
This equation is for all kinds of the PMSG. Since we use a
surface mounted PMSG here, then
qs ds
L L = , and (10) can be
derived by simplification of (16).
) ) ( (
2
5 . 1
) (
2 2
3
ds qs qs ds qs f ds qs qs ds e
i i L L i
P
i i
P
T + =

= (15)
qs f e
i
P
T
2
5 . 1
= (16)
Furthermore, (17) can be obtained by using Park
transformation [8].
) sin( =
s qs
i i (17)
Where is the initial angle of the stator current. Equation (17)
is the base equation for vector control of the PMSG.
di
i can be used to prevent the machine from suffering over
voltage by controlling the flux on d axis.
The grid side converter is used to adjust the voltage of the
capacitor constant based on (13).
The reactive power is controlled by adjusting the
do
i of the
inverter.
The control loop of the super capacitor adjust the power based
on the average power provided its voltage is sufficient to
support the load. If the average power is more than coming
power, it supplies power to the grid, and if it is lower, it saves
the power. Therefore, the output power is always constant.

IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
In this part, the control algorithm is simulated to evaluate
the performance of the system. The machine parameters is
given in the table below in PU.

Table I. Generator specifications
10 kW rating Remark
Rs .0918 (20 C)
Lds .00195 Unsaturated
Lqs .00195

The simulation results are given in figures 8-11. Figure 8
shows the wind speed variation during 10s. The average wind
speed is 10.5 m/s. This average power is 0.9 PU. Figure 9
shows the output power of the wind turbine system. As shown,
the oscillations of the input power are smoothed and the
average output power is the same as that of input power. Figure
10 shows the super capacitor output power. When the power is
negative, the super capacitor stores the extra wind power, and
when it is positive, the super capacitor releases the power to
keep the output power constant.

Figure 8. Wind speed variations versus speed.

Figure 9. Output power and wind power versus time.
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Figure 10. Capacitor output power versus time.

V. CONCLUSION
This study investigates the application of super capacitors
in wind turbine system for power smoothing. A control
algorithm is designed based on the dynamic of each part of the
wind turbine system. The wind turbine system with purposed
algorithm is simulated. The results show the significant
improvement of the wind turbine output power. With the
improvement of the super capacitor technology, the application
of the super capacitors in wind turbine system as an energy
storage will be unavoidable and more than ever.

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