Impact of Synchronous Condenser on Sub/Super-Synchronous Oscillations in Wind Farms

Sub/Super-synchronous oscillations have occurred in wind farms consisting of doubly-fed induction generators (DFIGs) or permanent magnet synchronous generators (PMSGs). This paper investigates the impact of synchronous condenser (SC) on sub/super-synchronous oscillations in wind farms with different types of generator and compares it with STATCOM. Impedance model is adopted in this paper to explain the mechanism of oscillations in wind farms and its mitigation using SC. Compared to STATCOM, SC is more effective in oscillation mitigations of the two types of wind farms. Eigenvalue analysis and time domain simulations in PSCAD/EMTDC are used to check the influence on sub/super-synchronous oscillations from different parameters of SC, such as its capacity, leakage reactance and inertia constant. The results indicate that SC would improve the system stability while a larger capacity will induce a greater improvement. A smaller leakage reactance of SC also benefits the mitigation of oscillations while its inertia constant can hardly influence system stability.