With environmental and policy pressure to move towards cleaner fuel sources, wind energy is a proven technology that can be successfully implemented at the utility-scale and provide clean energy to the grid. Wind energy consists of many distributed wind turbines that are paralleled and connected to inject power to one location on the transmission grid. There are real power losses and reactive power drops that must be taken into consideration for these projects for plant performance and compliance. The better the performance of each new and operating wind farm installed, the more efficiently the grid operates as well as the less greenhouse gases generated. This thesis will first review the creation of an Excel tool to perform a load flow study given inputs for a wind farm using Newton-Raphson algorithms.
Next, the results of the load flow analysis will be compared to an actual operating wind farm located in Texas to review the accuracy of the scenarios. Finally, alternative design and operating states for the wind farm are proposed and cases are simulated to review the impact on wind farm energy generation and reactive power provided to the grid. Finally, preferred improvements for future design and operational considerations are provided along with future areas of research and development. / Master of Science / This thesis is focused on improvements for wind farm design and operation to help wind farms generate more clean power to the grid. The thesis involves the creation of an Excel tool which can be used to complete required grid studies for real and reactive power flows within the wind farm to the point of connection with the transmission system. This analysis helps inform the wind farm design and operation to be more effective and operate more efficiently. An operating wind farm in Texas is explained and depicted for an understanding of how utility-scale wind farms are set up. Additionally, a year of data from an operating wind farm is used to compare the Excel load flow tool to actual data and confirm it's accuracy.
Alternate methods this plant could have been designed and operated are evaluated using the new tool and actual operating conditions from the plant for the year under analysis are performed to better understand and quantify possible improvements for wind farms. This thesis is less focused on the wind turbine generator (WTG) construction and operation of a single unit, but rather focused on the output from the WTG and the impact on an entire system containing many of these distributed generators and their operation to provide energy to the grid.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/119497 |
| Date | 24 June 2024 |
| Creators | Moon, Christopher Michael |
| Contributors | Electrical Engineering, Rahman, Saifur, Centeno, Virgilio A., De La Reelopez, Jaime |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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