Operation Characteristics of Zone 3 Distance Protection in Wind Power Systems with Fixed-Speed Induction Generators

Abstract

The induction generators (IGs) are basic to wind energy conversion. They produce the active power and consume the reactive power, with the voltage characteristics fragile compared with that of the synchronous generators and doubly-fed IGs. In the stressed system states, they may intensify var imbalance, yielding undesirable operation of zone 3 impedance relays.In this paper, the operation characteristics of the zone 3 relays in the wind power systems is studied. With the theoretical and load flow analysis, it is proved that the equivalent impedance of the IGs lies in the 2nd quadrature, possibly seen as the backward faults by the mho relays, i.e. the apparent impedance enters into the protection region from the left side. The undesirable operation may be caused by more wind power, larger load, less var compensation, and larger torque angle.