Control of a Variable-Impedance Fault Current Limiter to Assist Low-Voltage Ride-Through of Doubly Fed Induction Generators

Abstract

A fault current limiter (FCL) may be applied to assist the low-voltage ride-through (LVRT) of a doubly fed induction generator (DFIG). FCLs with fixed impedance, lack the flexibility to adjust their impedance to adapt to different LVRT scenarios. The direct switch-in and -out of the fixed-impedance FCL yields transient electromagnetic oscillations in the DFIG, which need to be addressed. In this paper, a variable-impedance FCL is implemented at the stator side of the DFIG to assist its LVRT, and a novel methodology is proposed to control the impedance of the FCL, with which the stator current oscillation is effectively constrained and the smooth switch-out of the FCL is realized to avoid continued active power consumption of the FCL and to restore the DFIG to its pre-fault working condition. Analysis of the LVRT transient is carried out, which lays the foundation for the control methodology to determine the impedance of the FCL based on calculation of the optimization goal. The feasibility and effectiveness of the control to the variable-impedance FCL are verified by the numerical analysis results, which compare the LVRT simulation results with the application of the fixed-impedance and the variable-impedance FCLs.