INVESTIGATION OF THE EFFECT OF THE TRANSFORMER CONNECTION TYPE ON VOLTAGE UNBALANCE PROPAGATION: CASE STUDY AT NÄSUDDEN WIND FARM

Abstract: The objective of this Thesis is to investigate the phenomenon of voltage unbalance on electrical wind power systems. A large part of this work is the literature review of all relative work that has been done so far. This serves first as a guideline to define and measure voltage unbalance and second as a tool to spot open research questions that can inspire future work. A case study is then used to investigate the voltage unbalance at a wind farm in Näsudden, Gotland. Using real-time measurements and a simulation of the power system in MATLAB/Simulink, an evaluation of the propagation of the voltage unbalance from the distribution to the turbine level is carried out. The effect that different transformer connection types have on the propagation is studied through simulations. Many assumptions and simplifications had to be made due to several limiting factors during this work, mainly related to time and data restrictions. The main result shows that when Delta – Wye Grounded and Wye – Wye Grounded transformers are used, the unbalance is halved when it passes to the turbine side. On the other hand, when Wye Grounded – Wye Grounded configuration was used, the unbalance was unaffected. The results also include a comparison of the use of different indices to quantify a voltage unbalance.