Abstract

Due to the high penetration level of wind farms in the electrical grids, many grid connectivity issues interested and must be highlighted such as the improvement of Fault-ride through (FRT) capability of grid integrated doubly fed induction generators (DFIGs) based wind-turbine. In this paper the resistive superconducting fault current limiter (RSFCL) is proposed to minimize the fault current, enhance the FRT capability of DFIG, preserve DC-link voltage level and improve the power system quality under abnormal conditions. To achieve these objectives, the thermal modeling of the RSFCL is developed and its impact on the dynamic performance of DFIG is studied by using MATLAB/SIMULINK. The proposed scheme performance has been compared with the Outer Crowbar system to confirm its validity. Results stated that inserting the RSFCL during the fault is more effective than the Outer Crowbar in decreasing the rotor current and increasing the active power generation capacity of the wind turbine, thus enhancing the dc-link voltage, in addition to improve the fault ride-through (FRT) capability of the wind farm. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.