Area of Collaboration

Characterization of wind turbine dynamic interactions with the power grid and development of advanced control for wind turbines and wind farms connected to weak power grids.

Company Background

GE Global Research Center (GRC) is the research arm of GE. The GRC conducts fundamental and applied research in support of all GE businesses. The Laboratory that funded this project supports GE Energy and other power businesses. GE Energy is one of the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturers, offering a wide range of products for onshore and offshore applications.

Work with CFES

The objective of the project was to develop modeling, analysis, and control techniques for wind turbines and wind farms connected to weak power grids. GE funded the project with $190K of internal R&D funding. The project, started in 2010, was initially planned for two years, and was extended for a third year. CFES researchers at RPI developed a set of new methods and tools to characterize wind turbine interactions with the grid. A new technique to measure the grid impedance using grid-connected wind inverters was also developed. Additionally, CFES developed adaptive turbine control methods based on online grid impedance measurement to ensure stable and reliable grid connection. The developed techniques were demonstrated on the CFES distributed generation test-bed.

Impacts of CFES Work

CFES work in this project led to a new fundamental understanding of wind turbine behavior under the influence of grid impedance, and provided effective solutions to harmonic resonance and inverter control instability problems that are increasingly common in renewable energy systems. The work also highlighted limitations of existing methods to certify wind inverters for grid compatibility, and indicated the need to develop new grid interconnect codes. RPI is currently applying the developed impedance-based modeling and control techniques in another joint project with GE on the development of resilient multi-terminal HVDC technologies, which is being funded by DOE at $4.49M.