Impact of the Wind Turbine on the Parameters of the Electricity Supply to an Agricultural Farm

Abstract

Wind power plants are an increasingly common source of electricity located in rural areas. As a result of the high variability of wind power, and thus the generated power, these sources should be classified as unstable sources. In this paper, the authors attempted to determine the impact of wind turbine operation on the parameters of electricity supplied to farms located near the source. As a result of the conducted field tests, variability courses of the basic parameters describing the supply voltage were obtained. The influence of power plant variability on the values of voltage, frequency, and voltage distortion factor was determined. To estimate the capacity of the transmission lines, the reactive power produced in the power plant and its effect on the value of the power factor were determined. The conducted research and analysis showed that the wind power plant significantly influences voltage fluctuations in its immediate vicinity (the maximum value registered was close to 2%, while the value required by law was 2.5%). Although all the recorded values are within limits specified by the current regulations (e.g., the THD value is four times lower than the required value), wind turbines may cause incorrect operation of loads connected nearby. This applies mainly to cases where consumers sensitive to voltage fluctuations are installed in the direct vicinity of the power plant.