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Design of LCL filters for the back-to-back

converter in a Doubly Fed Induction Generator

Conference Paper May 2012

DOI: 10.1109/ISGT-Asia.2012.6303305

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 IEEE PES ISGT ASIA 2012 1569538915

Design of LCL Filters for the Back-to-back

Converter in a Doubly Fed Induction Generator
Peng Zhan, Student Member, IEEE, Weixing Lin, Student Member, IEEE, Jinyu Wen*, Member, IEEE,

Meiqi Yao, Naihu Li, Member, IEEE

well designed [2].

Abstract--Wind power generator based on Doubly Fed
Induction Generator (DFIG) incorporates a back-to-back PWM
converter. Filters are used to eliminate the harmonics produced
by the PWM converter. However, very few papers have detailed
the design procedure of the filters for a DFIG based wind power
generator. A systematic procedure to design the LCL filters for
DFIG back-to-back converter is proposed in this paper. Both
filters for the grid side converter and the rotor side converter are
designed. Simulations in PSCAD/EMTDC verify the effectiveness
of the design procedure.
Index Terms-- LCL filter, doubly fed induction generator
(DFIG), back-to-back converter
I. INTRODUCTION
Doubly fed induction generators (DFIG) are widely used in
wind power systems. A back-to-back PWM converter in
DFIG, consisting of grid side converter (GSC) and rotor side
converter (RSC), guarantees its good performance. As there
are power electronic devices, harmonics produced by the
converters will be a problem. Harmonics in the rotor currents
cause undesirable fluctuations of generating active and
reactive powers, and harmonics in the stator currents
deteriorate the utility power quality. In order to comply with
corresponding standards [1], it is necessary to equip the
converters with low-pass filters.
Traditionally, an L filter or LC filter is be implemented to
eliminate high-frequency harmonics. However, since the
capacitance of the PWM converter in a DFIG is large, the
switching frequency is not very high. Thus, to attenuate
harmonics in comparatively low frequencies, large inductance
is required, which will result in large size and weight of the
filter. Though an LC filter can get higher harmonics
attenuation than an L filter, it is not suitable for using in grid
connected converter due to its low output impedance. An LCL
filter can provide higher harmonic attenuation than that of the
L filter, which is a better choice in DFIG application.
However, resonance may occur if the LCL filter has not been
There have been reports on using LCL filters to the GSC
[3-5] and reports on designing LC filter for the RSC [6]. In [3],
an LCL filter for inverter of wind power was introduced, and
the characteristics of the LCL filter compared with the L filter
were investigated. Paper [4] investigated the damping of
resonance oscillations for grid side converter with LCL filter
for doubly-fed wind power system. Paper [5] gave an
optimized design rule of the LCL filter for inverter of a wind
turbine. As to LCL filter for rotor side converter, in [6], a
second-order output LC filter was inserted between the
inverter and the rotor circuit of a DFIG. Taking the rotor
leakage inductance into consideration, it is an LCL filter
essentially. However, no design details were provided. Very
few paper exists on designing LCL filters for both the GSC
and the RSC to date.
This paper designs a Y connected LCL filter for GSC and a
delta connected LCL filter for RSC of a 2.5MW DFIG, and
the design procedures are proposed as well. Simulation and
analysis results validate the effectiveness of the designed
filters in attenuating harmonics.
II. LCL FILTER PRINCIPLE ANALYSIS
A. Characteristic analysis of LCL filter
Fig. 1 presents the schematic diagram of an LCL filter
which is inserted between a PWM converter and the grid.
Where, UO is terminal voltage of PWM converter, US is grid
voltage, L1 is the converter side inductor, R1 is the equivalent
resistance of L1, L2 is the grid side inductor, R2 is the
equivalent resistance of L2, C3 is the capacitor, R3 is the
damping resistor in series with C3.

This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science

Foundation of China (50937002) and the National Basic Research Program of
China (2009CB219701, 2012CB215106).
P. Zhan, W. Lin and J. Wen (contact author) are with State Key Labora- Fig. 1. LCL filter equivalent circuit diagram
tory of Advanced Electromagnetic Engineering and Technology (Huazhong
University of Science and Technology), Wuhan 430074, Hubei Province,
Ignoring R1 and R2, the LCL filter can be viewed as L2 and
China). (E-mails: zhanpeng_hust@163.com, weixinglin@foxmail.com,
jinyu.wen@hust.edu.cn). C3 paralleled, then, together they are in series with L1. The
M. Yao and N. Li are with the Alstom Grid China Technology Center, transfer function between the input voltage UO and the output
Shanghai, China. (E-mails: meiqi.yao@alstom.com, naihu.li@alstom.com).

1
 2

current I2 is: Prated

R3C3 s + 1 C3 5% (6)
3 2 f BU rated
2
H (s) = 3 2
(1)
L1 L2 C3 s + ( L1 + L2 ) R3 C3 s + ( L1 + L2 ) s
Where Prated is the rated power of the converter, fB is the
While for an L filter, the transfer function becomes: grid frequency, Urated is the RMS value of converter output
1 phase voltage.
H (s) = (2)
sL 2) Select the desired current ripple reduction with
Equation (1) is of third order. It is expected that the LCL respect to the ripple on the converter side to design the
filter gets higher harmonics attenuation at high frequency than inductance of L2. Thus in total the L2C2 part reduces the grid
the L filter with a first order transfer function. current ripple to a very low level.
The filter parameters L1, L2, C3, and R3 greatly influence
the performance of the LCL filter. Poorly designed parameters ig ( f PWM ) 1
will not reach the expected attenuation effect or even cause = = =10% (7)
L2 C3PWM 1
2
iC ( f PWM )
distortion increase due to oscillation effects [2]. The following
section will describe how to design these parameters Where ig(fPWM) and iC(fPWM) are grid current ripple and
following a step-by-step procedure. converter current ripple at the switching frequency.
3) To avoid resonance problems in the lower and upper
B. Constraints on LCL filter design
parts of the harmonic spectrum, res should be in a range
With the free variables in equation (1), the solution of the between ten times the grid frequency and one-half of the
LCL filter parameters is not exclusive, which brings difficulty switching frequency, i.e.,
in the filter design. However, according to the desired ripple
10B < res < 1 / 2PWM (8)
attenuation ratio and other requirements [2], constraints on the
values of L1, L2, C3, and R3 can be deduced. For a Y connected LCL filter, the resonant frequency res is
1) The total value of inductance should limit current expressed as
ripple of I1 to 15%-25% of rated current [3]. In Fig. 1, the L1 + L2
current I1 depends on the impedance of L1 (denoted as XL1) res = (9)
L1 L2 C3
and the parallel impedance of L2 and C3 (denoted as XL2C3).
The impedance of C3 (denoted as XC3) at switching frequency, For a delta connected LCL filter, res is
should be much smaller than the impedance of L2 at switching L1 + L2
frequency (denoted as XL2) to ensure that most of the high res = (10)
frequency currents flow through C3 branch, so the parallel 3 L1 L2 C3
impedance is dominated by XC3. Because XC3 is small, I1 is
mainly determined by XL1, which requires large L1 value to After designing L1, L2, and C3, the resonant frequency
limit current ripple. The maximum current ripple in a PWM should be verified. If the limit is not satisfied, the parameters
switching period is estimated as would be changed accordingly.
U dc 4) Without damping resistor R3, equation (1) becomes
irip max = (3) 1
8 f PWM L1 H (s) = 3
(11)
L1 L2 C3 s + ( L1 + L2 ) s
Where Udc is the converter dc-link voltage, fPWM is the
switching frequency. Thus to reach a desired current ripple irip, Transfer function in (8) has a pair of poles located at the
L1 is designed following: imaginary axis. The imaginary poles will cause oscillation to
U dc the system, which requires the filter to be damped to avoid
L1 (4) resonance problems.
8irip f PWM Damping resistors are widely used to increase the stability
However, in order to improve the ability of current tracking of the system due to its simplicity and reliability. Studies have
and avoid large ac voltage drop, L1 cannot be too large [7]. L1 shown that the greater the damping resistor, the better
is also limited by resonant inhibition [3, 8]. However, larger damping resistor
U dc / 3 U m
2 2 will cause larger power losses. Generally, R3 is set at one-third
L1 (5) the impedance of capacitor at resonant frequency [2],
B I m 1
Where Um is the peak phase voltage of gird, Im is the peak R3 = (12)
3res C3
current of grid, B is the angular frequency of grid voltage.
Low impedance of XC3 means large capacitor value of C3,
which will result in large reactive power. For converters III. LCL FILTERS DESIGN FOR BACK-TO-BACK
directly connected to the grid, the reactive power by C3 is CONVERTER OF DFIG
generally less than 5% of rated power with the power factor
limit. Thus, C3 is designed following:

2
 3

A. System configuration L2g=0.73mH is calculated using (7). Thus in total the L2gC3g
part reduces the grid current ripple to 2%.
The consequent resonant frequency is 775Hz, which is in
the range between 10fB (500Hz) and 1/2fPWM (975Hz).
4) The impedance of the filter capacitor at the resonant
frequency is 2.05, so the damping value R3g is chosen as
one-third, i.e., 0.68.

TABLE I
LCL filter parameters on GSC side
L1g L2g Rg Cg
Fig. 2. Configuration of a DFIG system with two LCL filters 1.0e-3H 0.73e-3H 0.68 100F

Fig. 2 shows the overall configuration of a DFIG system In summary, the LCL filter parameters on GSC side are list
with a Y connected LCL filter on GSC side and a delta in TABLE I.
connected LCL filter on RSC side respectively. The DFIG is
rated at 2.5MW with a 690V voltage (line to line, 50Hz). The Substituting L1g, L2g, C3g and R3g into (1), the transfer
stator rotor turns ratio is 0.3, and other parameters are listed in function becomes:
the Appendix. The converter dc-link capacitor is 20,000uF,
the dc-link reference voltage is set at 1,200V, and the
6.8 105 s + 1
switching frequency is 1,950Hz for both the converters. H (s) = 11 3 7 2 3
(13)
With the control of the back-to-back converter, DFIG 7.3 10 s + 1.18 10 s + 1.73 10 s
realizes maximum wind power tracking control and decoupled Bode Diagram
P-Q control [9]. The controllers are typically designed in a dq 50
rotating frame using proportional-plus-integral (PI) based
control strategies. The appearance of the LCL filter brings a 0
Frequency (Hz): 1950
little change to the rotating frame as well as the controller Magnitude (dB): -37.2
design. In [10], state feedback control was used to guarantee -50
the stability of a PWM inverter with an LCL filter. However,
the approach increased complexity in the control algorithm. -100
-90
In fact, PI control parameters are generally designed only
considering the low frequency components. As the -135
fundamental component of the output currents of both GSC
and RSC is at low frequency, and the capacitor branch -180
presents low pass characteristics for the high frequency
components, the capacitor branch can be neglected while -225
1 2 3 4
10 10 10 10
determining the control parameters. Thus the PI controllers for Frequency (Hz)
the converter with LCL filters can be designed by only
Fig. 3. Bode plot of LCL filter on GSC side
adapting the parameters of the PI controllers that is already
used for the converter with L filter configuration.
The bold lines in Fig. 3 are the bode plot of the LCL filter
B. Y connected LCL filter design for GSC on GSC side. It can be seen that the filter has satisfactory
Taking the constraints proposed in Section II into filtering performance with the gain of -37.2dB for 1950Hz
consideration, the systematic procedure to design the filter on signal, and higher frequency harmonics get higher attenuation.
The slender lines shows the bode plot of an L filter with a
GSC side is as follows.
7.2mH inductance. It can be concluded that in order to get the
1) According to (4), in order to obtain a 20% current
same attenuation as the LCL filter, a much larger inductance
ripple of I1g, a minimum value of 0.65mH is required for value is required for the L filter.
inductance L1g. L1g should be less than 2.2mH according to (5).
Here, 1.0mH is adopted for L1g. C. Delta connected LCL filter design for RSC
2) The maximum value of capacitor C3g is 167F under The frequency of RSC current varies in accordance with the
the 5% power factor limit, but capacitor value cannot be too rotor speed to keep stator frequency constant. Assume the
low to avoid too high a value of grid side inductance L2g. Here DFIG in our study operates at a maximum speed of 1.2pu on
C3g is set at 100F. If other constraints cannot be met, it will high wind speed conditions. Thus a 0.2pu slip frequency
be increased up to the maximum value. exists and consequently the rotor current frequency is 10Hz
3) Selecting a current ripple attenuation of 10% with (in negative sequence).
respect to the ripple on the converter side, a value of

3
 4

As can be seem from Fig. 5, a gain of -47.8dB is obtained

Rr Lr I2r L2r L1r I2c for 1,950Hz harmonic, which shows the good performance of
the filter on attenuating high frequency harmonics. It can be
E r C3r U Cr
found that this system is unstable because the resonant peak is
above 0dB. In order to enhance the system stability, Rr3 is
increased. The slender lines are the bode plot with Rr3 equals
1.14 (2 times of 0.57). With the larger damping resistor,
Fig. 4. Equivalent circuit of DFIG rotor side with the LCL filter the resonant peak is below 0dB, so the designed value of Rr3 is
changed to 1.14. It can be seen that the greater the passive
Fig. 4 shows the equivalent circuit of DFIG rotor side with damping resistor, the better resonant inhibition, but larger
the LCL filter. Lr and Rr is the rotor leakage inductance and losses will be caused.
the rotor resistor respectively. Er is the induced electromotive
force. Neglecting Rr, some differences exist in designing the
LCL filter on RSC side due to the existing Lr. The detailed
designing procedures are:

Magnitude (dB)
1) In order to obtain a 20% current ripple of I1r, a
minimum value of 0.36mH is required for inductance L1r
according to (4). To enhance the ability of current tracking, L1r
is set at 0.5mH, a little larger than the required value, which is
also less than 4.6mH according to (5).
2) The filter is delta connected on RSC side. With less
capacitance, the delta connected LCL filter can achieve the
Phase (deg)

same harmonics attenuation as Y connected LCL filter [11].

The maximum value of capacitor is 633F under the 5%
power factor limit. Here C3r is set at 300F. In order reach a
current ripple attenuation of 10% with respect to the ripple on
the converter side, a value of L2r=0.05mH is calculated using
(7). However, the existing rotor leakage inductance Lr is
0.106pu, which is 0.71mH when converted to rotor side.
Because Lr is much larger than the required value, it will play
the role of L2r. Thus L2r can be omitted. Thus with the LrC3r
part, a current ripple attenuation of more than 10% with
respect to the ripple on the converter side can be reached. It
must be pointed out that if Lr is smaller than the required
value, an extra inductance should be added to rotor side.
3) The consequent resonant frequency is 310Hz, which is
also in the range between 10fB (100Hz) and 1/2fPWM (975Hz).
4) The damping value R3g is set at 0.57 in delta
connection, one-third of the impedance of the capacitor at the
resonant frequency, 1.71.
The parameters are list in TABLE II.
TABLE II
LCL filter parameters on RSC side
Fig. 5. Bode plot of LCL filter on RSC side
IV. SIMULATION AND ANALYSIS
The DFIG with the two LCL filters proposed is modeled
and simulated in PSCAD/EMTDC. The phase A currents on
GSC side are shown in Fig. 6(a) and Fig. 6 (b), where ICA is
the converter output current and IgA is the current into the grid.
The currents are analyzed using FFT, and their spectrums
are shown in Fig. 6(c) and Fig. 6 (d). It can be found that the
lowest frequency current ripple of the currents is around
1,950Hz, 3,900Hz and 5,850Hz ect. Its obvious that
harmonics magnitude of ICA is much higher than IgA.
The Total Harmonics Distortion (THD) is used to evaluate
the filtering performance. THD is expressed as

L1r L2r R3r C3r

I 2 (h)
h=2
THD= (15)
5.0e-4H 0.57 300F I (1)
Where I(1) is the RMS value of fundamental current and
Transforming the value C3r and R3r in delta connection into I(h) is the RMS value of the hth harmonic current. RMS values
the Y connection, and then substituting the parameters into (1), and the THDs of the currents are list in TABLE III.
the transfer function becomes:
4 TABLE III
1.7 10 s + 1 Phase A current of GSC (RMS: kA)
H (s) = 10 3 7 2 3
(14)
3.2 10 s + 2.1 10 s + 1.2 10 s Overall Fundamental Overall-harmonic
THD
current(kA) current(kA) currents(kA)
According to (14), the bode plot of the designed LCL filter ICA 0.2401 0.2387 0.0264 11.05%
on RSC side is shown with the bold lines in Fig. 5. IgA 0.2397 0.2396 0.0041 1.70%

4
 5

It can be seen that current THD is significantly reduced

from 11.05% on converter side to 1.70% on grid side, which

IcA/kA
shows the effectiveness of the LCL filter.

(a)
ICA/kA
(a)

IrA/kA
(b)
IgA/kA
(b)

Mag(kA)
(c)
Mag(kA)
(c)

Mag(kA)
(d)
Mag(kA)
(d)

Fig. 7. Phase A currents on RSC side and the spectrum

V. CONCLUSION
By analyzing the characteristic of the LCL filter, the
constraints on designing the parameters of the LCL filter are
Fig. 6. Phase A currents on GSC side and the spectrums provided. Based on the constraints, two LCL filters, one in Y
Taking into account the active power consumed by the connection and one in delta connection, are designed for the
damping resistor and the reactive power provided by the back-to-back converter of a 2.5MW DFIG. The detailed
capacitor, the losses are 0.48% of rated power, and the power design procedures are proposed as well. PSCAD/EMTDC
factor is 4.4% consequently. simulation and analysis results show that the THD of the
Phase A currents on RSC side with their spectrums are current after filtering is 1.70% on GSC side and 1.64% on
shown in Fig. 7. IcA is the converter side current and IrA is RSC side respectively, which verified the effectiveness of the
rotor side current. The analysis results are list in TABLE IV. designed filters in attenuating harmonics produced by the
back-to-back converter.
TABLE IV
Phase A currents on RSC side (RMS: kA)
VI. APPENDIX
Overall Fundamental Overall-harmonic
current current currents
THD DFIG parameters:
Turn ratio: 0.3
IcA 0.5388 0.5374 0.0386 7.19%
Stator resistance: 0.023pu
IrA 0.5443 0.5442 0.0089 1.64% Rotor resistance: 0.0396pu
Stator leakage inductance: 0.104pu
The fundamental current on rotor side is a little larger than Rotor leakage inductance: 0.106pu
that of the converter side because the power flows form rotor Magnetizing inductance: 2.93pu
side to converter side due to supersynchronous operation. The
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BIOGRAPHIES

Peng Zhan was born in 1987. He received the B.Eng in electrical

engineering from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST),
Wuhan, China in 2010. Currently he is pursuing a Mater degree at HUST. His
research interest is the wind power generation and the control schemes for
integrating wind power to the grid through HVDC.

Weixing Lin was born in 1986. He received the B.Eng in electrical

engineering from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST),
Wuhan, China in 2008. Currently he is pursuing a Ph.D. degree at HUST. His
research interest is control, technical and economic comparisons of different
schemes for integrating wind power to the grid.

Jinyu Wen received the B.Eng. and Ph.D. degrees all in electrical
engineering from HUST, Wuhan, China, in 1992 and 1998, respectively. He
was a visiting student from 1996 to 1997 and research scholar from 2002 to
2003 all at the University of Liverpool UK. In 2003 he entered the HUST and
now is a professor at HUST. His current research interests include smart grid,
renewable energy, energy storage, FACTS, HVDC and power system
operation and control.