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orgInternationalJournalofEnergyScience(IJES)Volume3Issue5,October2013
DOI:10.14355/ijes.2013.0305.02

DesignofaControlSystemforActiveand
ReactivePowerControlofaSmallGrid
ConnectedWindTurbine
Md.Alimuzzaman1,M.T.Iqbal2
FacultyofEngineeringandAppliedScience,MemorialUniversityofNewfoundland
St.Johns,NL,Canada,A1B3X5
ma6762@mun.ca;2tariq@mun.ca

Abstract
Reactivepowerflowbetweenawindturbinesystemandthe
gridisanimportantissueespeciallywhenthewindturbine
is connected to a remote grid. In this research, a control
system has been developed that allows wind turbine to
providereactivepowertothelocalloadconnectedbetween
thegridandthewindturbine.Thesuppliedreactivepower
from the wind turbine is controlled by changing the phase
angle of Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) in the wind
turbine inverter. A proportional controller is used to
maintain the reactive power supplied by the wind turbine.
Another PI controller is used to maintain the wind turbine
operation at an optimum tip speed ratio (TSR) to extract
maximumpowerfromthewind.Theproposedsystemalong
with all subsystems has been modelled and simulated in
Matlab/ Simulink. The simulation results confirm that the
designed system is able to control the wind turbine and
capable of providing the required reactive power. Results
showthatthedesignedsystemisabletomaintainthesystem
powerfactorclosetounityforarangeofwindspeeds.
Keywords
Reactive Power Control; Small Wind Turbine Control; Small
GridconnectedwindTurbine;RenewableEnergy

Introduction
Wind turbine generation has been contributing to a
remarkable percentage to the total power generation
in the world. Recently, it has been increasing
dramatically because of governments support and
public environmental concerns (Cultura 2011).
According to British petroleum statistical review of
world energy June, 2012, worldwide wind energy
productionhasincreasedbymorethan25.8%in2011
from2010.Windpowerhascontributedtoabout194.8
milliontonnesoilequivalentenergyin2011(BP2012).
Small wind turbines are becoming popular, mainly
usedtomeetsmallcommunityenergydemand,water
pumping and for remote power generation. Grid

304

connected small wind turbines are very useful where

boththegridandthewindenergyareavailable.Ifthe
wind turbine is gridconnected, it can use the grid to
store excesspower and user can get power fromgrid
when there is a lack of power production from the
wind. Wind turbine power production depends on
windspeed.Theoutputpowerisnotconstantatallas
wind speed changes all times. Wind turbine can
extract maximum power when the rotor blades
maintain an optimum tip speed ratio (TSR). As the
wind turbine characteristics are nonlinear, a proper
control system is needed to extract maximum power
from wind (Mahmoud 2012), (Aryuanto 2011). For
maximum power extraction, TSR control (Athanasios
2012), (Ali 2007) Perturbation and observation or hill
climbingsearching(Moor2003),(Koutroulis2006)and
powersignalfeedback(PSF)(Raju2004),(Azouz2010),
(Galdi2011)technologiesareavailable.
Mostcommerciallyavailablesmallwindturbineshave
permanent magnet generator. So the system does not
consume reactive power from grid but wind turbine
generationcanbeusedtoprovidelocalreactivepower
consumption. It will minimize reactive power flow
overthegridandthusminimizingthelosses(Peiyuan
2010). In article (Peiyuan 2010), a stochastic
optimization methodology has been introduced to
control reactive power of wind turbines. There are
several technologies available to provide the reactive
power such as static var compensator (SVC), static
synchronous compensator (STATCOM) (Saghaleini
2012)butallthesetechnologiesneedextraequipment
andcosts.
Reactive power of wind turbine generation system
depends on the inverter configuration. There are
extensive researches concerning the reactive power
controloftheinverter.In(Bouafia2009),afuzzylogic
controller has been used to control both active and

InternationalJournalofEnergyScience(IJES)Volume3Issue5,October2013
DOI:10.14355/ijes.2013.0305.02

reactive power. In (Cortes 2008), a predictive control

methodhasbeenintroducedtocontrolbothactiveand
reactive power. A nonlinear sliding mode control
system for power control of a three phase grid
connected inverter is discussed in (Jiabing 2011). A
non linear decoupling method based reactive power
control methodology is proposed for gridconnected
PV inverter in (Cagnano 2011). A controlling strategy
forCurrentSourceBoostInverter(CSBI)usingphasor
pulsewidthmodulation (PPWM) is proposed and
verified using simulation result in (Saghaleini 2011).
Article (Saghaleini 2012) describes only the reactive
power control with a CSBI using PPWM in details
withbothsimulationresultsandexperimentalresults.
All the techniques are applied to gridconnected
inverter. The inverter can be controlled to provide
reactive power to the grid. In most cases, the
techniquesareappliedandverifiedwithasimpleDC
inputtotheinverter.Aresearchshouldbeperformed
on a small gridconnected wind turbine system along
with inverter that can control reactive power flow. In
this paper, a control system for control of reactive
power along with maximum power point tracking
(MPPT) operation has been developed for a small
windturbine.

Percentage of reactive
power

Some Issues of Small Wind Turbine

250
200
150
100
50
0

in (Alimuzzaman 2012). From that recent article, it is

clearthatmostofthecommercialavailablesmallwind
turbinecannotproducereactivepowerwhenrequired.
Figure 1(a) below shows that the reactive power is
drawn from the grid when an induction motor is
connectedbetweengridandturbine.Figure1(b)below
shows reactive power is drawn from the grid test
resultsofanotherwindturbine.Itisevidentthatwhen
an induction motor is connected, all the reactive
powercomesfromthegridandwindturbineinverter
does not contribute. A local capacitor can help to
compensate the required reactive power. However, a
localcapacitorcanprovideafixedamountofreactive
powernotrelatedtotheloadandsuchcapacitorsare
costly.Itwouldbeidealifawindturbineinvertercan
provide the reactive power for the local load, which
could be achieved by a modification to the inverter
controlasproposedbelow.
Small Wind Turbine Configuration for This
Research
Inthisresearch,asmallwindturbinesystemsimilarto
a practical one has been considered. The system
consistsofwindturbine,permanentmagnetgenerator,
rectifier,DCDCconverter,inverter,transformer,grid
andthecontrolsystem.Ablockdiagramofthesystem
ispresentedbelow.

with motor
withoutmotor
withmotor&capacitor

10 12 14 16

wind speed(m/s)

FIG.2BLOCKDIAGRAMOFASMALLWINDTURBINESYSTEM

(a)
Percentage of reactive
power

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150

System Modeling

withmotor

100

withmotor
andcapacitor

50

without motor

10 12 14 16 18

wind speed(m/s)
(b)
FIG.1(A)REACTIVEPOWERFROMDRAWNFROMTHEGRID
FORWINDTURBINEA,(B)REACTIVEPOWERDRAWNFROM
THEGRIDFORWINDTURBINEB[19].

Mostofthecommercialsmallwindturbinesareinthe
rangeof110kW.Toinvestigatethepowerproduction
characteristicsundervariableelectricalloads,abunch
of experiments has been done and explained broadly

The main parts of the system are wind turbine,

permanent magnet generator and the power
electronics.
Windturbine:Thewindturbineusedinthisstudyisa
1.1 kW system. The wellknown equation of wind
turbinepoweris
P .5AV C (1)
Where
C
f

(2)

(3)

HereP=Power(watt)
=airdensity(Kg/m3),
A=rotorbladearea(m2),

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www.ijesci.orgInternationalJournalofEnergyScience(IJES)Volume3Issue5,October2013
DOI:10.14355/ijes.2013.0305.02

V=windspeed(m/s),
Cp=PowerCoefficient,
=Tipspeedratio,
=rotorbladerotation(rad/s),
r=bladeradius=0.9m

used.Thegeneratoris1.4kW,4polemachine.
The generator is modelled using the following
equations(Damien1997).

Forthisparticularwindturbine,amaximumvalueof
Cp is assumed as 0.5 and it happens when tip speed
ratioissix.Generally,Cpincreaseswiththeincrement
oftipspeedratioforvariablespeedwindturbineuntil
Cp reaches its maximum value and after that it
decreases with tip speed ratio increases (MingFa
2012), (Putrus 2009), (Bhowmik 1998). The following
equation (4) represents a typical Cp characteristic
where Cp is maximum (0.5) when is equal to six.
This equation is used to define the Cp relation of
thisparticularsmallwindturbine.
Cp=0.0142+0.1690.002(4)
The wind turbine is configured with the equation(1),
(2),(3)and(4).

FIG.3WINDTURBINEMODEL

Permanent Magnet Generator: For this system, a

permanent magnet synchronous generator has been

i
T

L
R
L

1.5p i

L
L
L

p i

p i
L

(5)

(6)

L i i (7)

Where,Lq,Ld=qanddaxisinductances
R=Resistanceofthestatorwindings
iq,id=qanddaxiscurrent
Vq,Vd=qanddaxisvoltage
=angularvelocityoftherotor
a=Amplitudeoftheflux
p=polepairsnumber
Te=Electromagnetictorque
Power electronics: The generator is connected to a
rectifier as shown in Figure 2. The system output is
twophase.Therectifierisconnectedtoaninvertervia
aDCDCboostconverter.Theinverterisconnectedto
atransformer.Thetransformerratingis1.5kVA(208V
to600V,3phase).
APIcontrollerisusedfortheDCDCboostconverter
switchcontrolandaproportionalcontrollerisusedfor
the phase control of the PWM inverter. Blocks from
Simulink power system blockset are used to model
thepowerelectronics.Blockparameterswereadjusted
accordingly. A full system model in Simulink is
presentedinFigure4.Theproposedcontrolsystemis
describedinthefollowingsections.

FIG.4SYSTEMMODELINGINSIMULINK

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DOI:10.14355/ijes.2013.0305.02

Control System Design

In this system, there are two different control units
and they are independent. Detailed description of
thesecontrolsystemsarepresentedbelow.
ActivePowerControlSystem
To extract maximum power, the wind turbine has to
rotate at a specific speed at a particular wind speed.
When it passes through the air, the turbine blade
creates turbulence and wake. If the subsequent blade
arrives before the turbulence has vanished, it is not
possibletoextractmaximumpowerfromthewindbut
ifthebladearrivesjustafterthewakehasvanished,it
can extract more power. For any turbine, this effect
can be assigned a constant number referred to as
optimumTSR(Kooning2012).
Thepowercoefficientofawindturbineismaximized
when it rotates at the optimum tip speed ratio. The
mainobjectiveofthisactivepowercontrolsystemisto
maintain the tip speed ratio at its optimum value for
any wind speed. In this research, a PI controller is
usedwiththeDCDCboostconverter.Aspeedsensor
measures the rotational speed of the turbine and an
anemometer measures wind speed, and the
instantaneousTSRiscalculatedwiththesetwovalues.
TheinstantaneousTSRiscomparedwiththeoptimum
TSR, and thus the error is calculated. (see Figure 4)
ThePIisusedtocorrecttheerrorinTSR.Theoutput
signal of the PI controller is compared with a
triangularwaveandagatesignalisgeneratedforthe
DCDC boost converter switch and thus the DC
currentfromthegeneratortoloadiscontrolled.Asthe
generator rpm depends on its load, indirectly the
generator rpm can be controlled to a desired value.
Again,thegeneratorandtheturbinearemechanically
coupled;thereforetheturbineiscontrolledtorunatits
optimumTSR.Figure5isaflowchartofthecontroller.
If instantaneous TSR is the same as the desired TSR,
then the PWM duty ratio is not changed. If
instantaneous TSR is more than the optimum TSR,
then the PWM duty ratio is increased or otherwise
decreased. The control code also keeps the duty ratio
within a set limit. Therefore, the system active power
iscontrolledbyadjustingtheDCinputtotheinverter.
The designed controller also makes sure that the
maximumpowerisextractedfromthewind.

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outputisconvertedtoDCpowerwitharectifier.The
DCpowergoesthroughaDCDCboostconverterand
isthenconvertedto60Hz,208V,ACpowerwithan
inverter.Inthisresearch,afourpulsetwoleginverter
is used. The inverter pulse width modulation (PWM)
generator is carrierbased. It creates pulses by
comparing a triangular carrier waveform with a
referencemodulatingsignalasshownintheFigure6.
Inthisresearch,thetrianglecarriersignaliscompared
withthesinusoidalmodulatingsignal.Astheinverter
hastwolegsthereforefourpulsesareneededforfour
switches. The phase, frequency, and amplitude of the
output voltage depend on the characteristics of the
reference modulating signal. So by changing the
modulatingsignalphase,theoutputvoltagephasecan
becontrolled(Saghaleini2012).

FIG.5FLOWCHARTFORACTIVEPOWERCONTROL

ReactivePowerControlSystemDesign
The PMG output for this system is a variable AC
powerthatvarieswiththewindspeed.Thegenerator

FIG.6REFERENCESIGNAL,CARRIERSIGNALANDGATE
PULSEFORPWM

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DOI:10.14355/ijes.2013.0305.02

Hereaproportionalcontrollerandamemoryblockare
usedtocontrolthephaseangleoftheoutputvoltage.
Memory block is added to avoid loop error. The
controller works on the basis of the reactive power
error. Reactive power error is the difference between
the reactive power needed by the local load and the
reactivepowerproducedbytheinverter.Thememory
blockremembers the phaseangle value that has been
used during the previous time step. The controller
changes its output according to the error, and using
the memory value it adjusts the phase angle of the
PWMgeneratortomaketheerrorequaltozero.With
this control system, the reactive power production of
the wind turbine can be controlled and thus the total
reactive power exchanges with the grid can be also
controlled.

In this case( Figure 8), as the load is not purely

resistive,theinverterproducesreactivepowertomeet
the load demand and thus reducing the reactive
powerfromthegridtozero,andthegridsidepower
factorremainsclosetounity.

System Simulation and Results

AftermodelinginSimulink,thetotalsystemhasbeen
simulated for different wind speeds and load
demands. Here the simulation has been divided into
threeparts.Theyaredemonstratedbelow.

FIG.8CASESTUDYTWO

Casestudy3:windspeed=variable,load=resistiveand
reactiveload,simulationruntime=3.5second

Casestudy1:windspeed=12.5m/s,load=pureresistive
load,simulationruntime=onesecond

FIG.9CASESTUDYTHREE

FIG.7CASESTUDYONE

In Figure 7 it is shown that TSR is constant and its

value is six. Though the load is purely resistive, the
inverter produces smallamount of reactive power,as
thereisatransformerinthesystem.Butfromthegrid
sidetransducer,itisclearthatthetotalreactivepower
from the grid is equal to zero and for this reason the
powerfactorisalsoveryclosetounity.
Case study 2: wind speed=10m/s, load=resistive and
reactiveload,simulationruntime=onesecond

308

In this case (Figure 9), there are sudden changes of

wind speed and the stability of the system has been
verified. When wind speed changes from 12m/s to
10m/s,theactivepowercontrolcircuitstillmaintainsa
TSRofsix.Activepowerdecreasesasthewindspeed
decreases. However, as the load is not changed, the
inverterproducesthesameamountofreactivepower
asbefore.Thusthetotalreactivepowerexchangewith
thegridisstillzero,andthesystemmaintainsapower
factorclosetounity.Again,att=2.1swhenwindspeed
increasesfrom10m/sto11m/s,activepowerincreases
butTSR,reactivepower,andthepowerfactorremain
unchanged. This indicates that the designed control

InternationalJournalofEnergyScience(IJES)Volume3Issue5,October2013
DOI:10.14355/ijes.2013.0305.02

system extracts maximum power from the wind and

providesreactivepowerforthelocalload.Thismodel
and the designed controllers could be simulated for
anysetofinputconditions.

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14th International Middle East Power Systems

Conference (MEPCON10), Cairo University, Egypt,
Cairo,2010,pp.935940.
Alimuzzaman, Md. Iqbal, M.T. and Gerald Giroux, An

Conclusion

Investigation of Power Performance of Small Grid

In this research, a controlsystem has been developed

for a small wind turbine system that extracts
maximumpowerfromthewind,andensuresthatthe
system and local load consume zero reactive power
fromthegrid.Thewindturbineinverteriscontrolled
sothatitproducestherequiredreactivepowerneeded
bythelocalload.Theproposedreactivepowercontrol
system is less complicated, as it does not require any
rotationalreferenceorusedqmachinetheory.Awind
turbine system with this type of technology will
provideorconsumezeroreactivepowertoorfromthe
grid. Some grid distributors have included an extra
chargeforreactivepowerconsumption.Theproposed
controlsystemwillavoidreactivepowerchargebynot
consumingreactivepowerfromthegrid.

Connected Wind Turbines under Variable Electrical

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to thank the Wind Energy

Strategic Network, National Science and Engineering
Research Council (NSERC), Canada for providing
financialsupportforthisresearch.
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