Power Quality Improvement in a Wind Power System Employing Fuzzy-based UPQC

Abstract

Renewable energy sources have risen to prominence as the world's primary method of producing electricity in response to the severe fuel shortage and environmental damage caused by traditional sources. Since wind farms are a clean and widely available renewable resource, they are being used to increase overall energy output. Power Quality (PQ) issues including voltage dips, surges, flickering lights, unbalanced harmonics, and so on arise from the incorporation of wind farms. The origin of harmonics lies in the non-linearity of most commercial and industrial loads. Voltage sag is one of the most severe disturbances to sensitive loads, and it is the root cause of 70% of PQ problems. Worries about low power quality have spread to the consumer and industrial sectors, necessitating the maximum level of PQ improvement. Unlike other specialized power devices, the Unified Power Quality Conditioner can reduce the detrimental effects of voltage and current harmonics simultaneously. This research looks at the PQ issues, voltage fluctuations, and current harmonics that result from interconnecting wind turbines to the grid, and it offers PQ enhancement by including UPQC. This work proposes a Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC)-based control technique to improve UPQC performance without employing preset gains like standard Proportional-Integral (PI) controllers. Simulations demonstrate that the fuzzy-controlled UPQC lowers voltage sag as well as current harmonics better than a PI-controlled one, enhancing grid-connected wind power system dependability.