Autonomous Hybrid System Using PMSGs for

Hydro and Wind Power Generation

Puneet K. Goel1, Bhim Singh2, Senior Member IEEE, S.S. Murthy3, Senior Member IEEE and
Navin Kishore4
1 Ministry of Power, New Delhi, India, [email protected]
2 Dept. of Electrical Engineering, IIT Delhi, India, [email protected]
3 Dept. of Electrical Engineering, IIT Delhi, India, [email protected]
4 NTPC Ltd., New Delhi, India, [email protected]

(WECS) also, the turbines with PMSGs are gaining

Abstract— This paper deals with an isolated wind-hydro hybrid popularity. PMSGs have a loss-free rotor, and the power
generation system employing one Permanent Magnet losses are confined to the stator windings and the stator core
Synchronous Generator (PMSG) driven by hydro turbine and [4]. A multi-pole PMSG connected to a power converter can
another PMSG driven by a variable speed wind turbine feeding operate at low speeds, so that a gear can be usually omitted.
three-phase four-wire local loads. The proposed system utilizes Since a gearbox causes increased weight, losses, cost and it
two back to back connected Pulse Width Modulated (PWM)
requires maintenance. A gearless construction represents an
Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors (IGBTs) based voltage source
converters (VSCs) with a battery energy storage system (BESS) efficient and robust solution for wind power generation. Thus
at their dc link. The main objectives of the control algorithm for the efficiency of a PMSG based WECS has been assessed
VSCs are to achieve maximum power tracking (MPT) through higher than other variable-speed WECS [5]. The grid
rotor speed control of a wind turbine driven PMSG under connected variable speed WECS based on PMSG
varying wind speeds, and control of the magnitude and the incorporating two back to back connected converters have
frequency of the load voltage. The proposed wind hydro hybrid been reported in the literature [6]-[9]. When PMSG is directly
system is having capability of bidirectional active and reactive connected to the grid it operates at constant speed [7].
powers flow, by which it controls the magnitude and the Further, the prices of magnets have decreased over the last
frequency of the load voltage. The proposed electro-mechanical
decades, making PMSG viable option for conversion of
system using PMSGs, a MPT controller and a voltage and
frequency controller (VFC) are modeled and simulated in renewable energy into electricity.
MATLAB using Simulink and Sim Power System (SPS) set In the case of grid connected systems using RES, the total
toolboxes and different aspects of the proposed system are active power can be fed to the grid. For standalone systems
studied for various types of linear loads and nonlinear loads and supplying local loads, if the extracted power is more than the
under varying wind speed conditions. The performance of the local loads (and losses), the excess power from the wind
proposed system is presented to demonstrate its capability of turbine is required to be diverted to a dump load or stored in
MPT, VFC, harmonic elimination and load balancing. the battery bank [10]. Further, in the case of standalone or
autonomous systems, the issues of voltage and frequency
Index Terms— Battery Energy Storage System, Permanent control (VFC) are very important. Some work has also been
Magnet Synchronous Generator, Wind-Hydro Hybrid System. reported for standalone WECSs using SCIGs (Squirrel Cage
I. INTRODUCTION Induction Generators) [11]-[13]. In [13], a battery based

R enewable energy sources (RES) are the natural energy controller is proposed for control of voltage and frequency in
resources that are inexhaustible: for example, wind, the isolated WECS. However, MPT could not be realized in
solar, geothermal, biomass and small-hydro generation [1]. these battery based isolated system based on SCIG operated at
Although the potential for small hydroelectric systems almost constant speeds. In [2], Singh et al. have proposed an
depends on the availability of suitable water flow, where the electronic load controller for VFC at the stator terminals, and
resources exist it can provide cheap, clean, reliable electricity. the controller transfers excess power from the hydropower
Amongst RES, small-hydro and wind energy have ability to generator to a dump load, when the load power is less than the
complement each other. Further, there are many isolated generated power.
locations, which can’t be connected to the grid and where the In this paper, a new three-phase four-wire autonomous wind-
wind potential and hydro potential exist simultaneously. For hydro hybrid system is proposed feeding isolated loads. The
example, in India, Lakshadweep group of islands is one such proposed system utilizes variable speed wind turbine driven
location. Wind power generation requires variable speed PMSGw (subscript w for wind), and constant speed constant
variable power generators for maximum power tracking power small hydro turbine driven PMSGh (subscript h for
(MPT). On the other hand for small hydro turbines, constant hydro). The system is employing a Battery Energy Storage
speed and constant power generators are required [2]. System (BESS), which performs the function of load leveling
For RES and autonomous applications, permanent magnet in the wake of uncertainty in the wind speed and variable
synchronous generators (PMSG) are gaining popularity [3]. loads.
Further for variable speed wind energy conversion systems

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 Fig. 1 Schematic diagram of wind hydro hybrid system using PMSGs
load. Thus the load side converter controls the load voltage
The schematic diagram of three phase four wire and frequency.
autonomous system is shown in Fig. 1. Two back to back For the proposed system, there are three modes of
connected Pulse Width Modulated (PWM) Insulated Gate operation. In the first mode, the required active power of the
Bipolar Transistors (IGBTs) based voltage source converters load is less than the power generated by the PMSGh, and the
(VSCs) and a delta star transformer are connected between the excess power generated by the PMSGh and the entire power
stator windings of PMSGw and the stator windings of the generated by the PMSGw are transferred to the BESS. In the
PMSGh to facilitate bidirectional power flow. The stator second mode, the required active power of the load is more
windings of the PMSGh are connected to the load terminals. than the power generated by the PMSGh but less than the total
Two VSCs can be called as the machine (PMSGw) side power generated by PMSGw and PMSGh. Thus the part of the
converter and the load side converter. A battery bank in series power generated by PMSGw is supplied to the load through the
with a small inductor is connected at the dc bus of PWM load side converter and the part is stored in BESS. In the third
converters. The advantage of using battery on the dc bus of the mode, the required active power of the load is more than the
PWM converters is that no additional converter is required for total power generated by PMSGw and PMSGh, and the deficit
transfer of power to or from the battery. Further, the battery power is supplied by the BESS.
keeps the dc bus voltage constant during load disturbances or
load fluctuations. The inductor connected in series with the II. PRINCIPLE OF OPERATION
battery bank removes ripples from the battery current. A delta To achieve MPT, the PMSGw is required to be operated at
star transformer is connected between the load and the load optimal tip speed ratio as shown in Fig. 2, so that the power
side converter, to optimize the rating of dc bus voltage and generated by it lies on maximum power line as shown in Fig.
harmonic elimination. 3. The value of coefficient of performance for MPT is 0.441
For the proposed hybrid system, a modified control and optimum tip speed ratio is 5.66. The operating principle of
algorithm is proposed that has the capability of MPT, the controller for the machine side converter is based on the
harmonic elimination, load leveling, load balancing and decoupled control of d- and q-axis stator currents of the
neutral current compensation along with VFC. The objective PMSGw with d-axis aligned to permanent magnet flux axis or
of the machine (PMSGw) side converter is to achieve MPT rotor electrical axis. The machine has no reluctance variation
with minimum stator current, and the control objective of the along the air gap and if the saturation is neglected, only the q-
load side converter is to maintain the active power balance in axis stator current contributes to the electrical torque, the d-
the system by transferring the excess power to the battery or axis stator current of PMSGw is kept zero in order to obtain
for providing deficit power from the battery. Further, the load maximum torque with minimum current [14].
side converter provides the requisite reactive power for the

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 currents. The control strategy for the machine side converter
control is shown in Fig. 4.
1) Speed control loop for MPT and reference q-axis stator
current (PMSGw) generation:

In the proposed algorithm, the rotor position (Өrw) and the

wind speed are sensed. The rotor speed (ωrw) is determined
from the rotor position (Өrw). The reference rotor speed (ωrw*)
for MPT is generated from the wind speed (Vw) using
optimum tip speed ratio (λ*w) and turbine radius (rw) and
compared with sensed PMSGw speed (ωrw) to calculate the
rotor speed error at the nth sampling instant as,
Fig. 2 Coefficient of Power (Cp) vs. tip speed ratio (λ) ωrw( n ) = Vw( n ) *(λw* / rw ) (1)
ωerrw( n ) = ω *rw( n ) −ωrw ( n ) (2)
th
At the n sampling instant, the output of the proportional and
integral (PI) speed controller with gains Kpω and Kiω gives
reference for q-axis stator current (Iqsw) as,
( n ) = I qsw ( n −1) + K pω (ωerrw ( n ) − ωerrw ( n −1) ) + K iω ωerrw ( n )
*
I qsw (3)
2) Reference d-axis stator current (PMSGw) generation:
To obtain maximum torque with minimum stator currents, the
reference d-axis stator current (Idsw*) is set to zero at the nth
sampling instant as,
*
I dsw (n) = 0 (4)
3) PWM signal generation for the machine side converter:
Fig. 3 Mechanical power output of the wind turbine vs. PMSGw
speed for different wind speeds By dq to abc transformation using rotor electrical angle
As the wind speed varies, the rotor speed set point changes (pw/2)Өrw (where pw is the number of poles of PMSGw and Өrw
and the difference in the rotor speed set point and the actual is its rotor position), the reference d-q stator currents (Idsw* and
rotor speed is fed to the speed controller. The output of the Iqsw*) are converted to three phase reference PMSG stator
controller gives the reference q-axis stator current. The currents ( iswa*, iswb* and iswc*), which are then compared with
reference d-q stator currents of PMSGw are transformed to sensed PMSGw stator currents ( iswa,, iswb and iswc) to compute
reference three phase stator currents and compared with the PMSGw stator current errors. These current errors are
sensed three phase stator currents to generate control signal for amplified with a gain (K) and the amplified signals are
the machine (PMSGw) side converter. compared with fixed frequency (10 kHz) triangular wave to
The load side converter is controlled for the regulation of generate gating signals for IGBTs of the machine side
load voltage magnitude and load frequency. For maintaining converter.
the load frequency constant, it is essential that any surplus B. Control of Load Side Converter
active power in the system is diverted to the battery.
Alternately, the battery system should be able to supply any The control strategy for the load side converter control is
deficit in the generated power. Similarly, the magnitude of the shown in Fig. 4. Indirect current control is used for control of
load voltage is maintained constant in the system by balancing load side converter, i.e., the control signals for the load side
the reactive power requirement of the load through the load converter are generated by comparing reference PMSGh
side converter. currents with sensed PMSGh currents. Thus load side
The detailed control algorithm for the machine (PMSGw) converter currents are not used for generating the control
side converter and the load side converter is given in the next signals for the load side converter. Since the PMSGh currents
section. are balanced and sinusoidal, the actual PMSGh currents are
III. CONTROL ALGORITHM also balanced and sinusoidal irrespective of the unbalance and
The detailed control algorithm for the two converters is harmonics in the load currents. Any unbalance and harmonics
shown in Fig. 4. A brief description of the control algorithm in the load currents are compensated by the load side
is given in the following sub-sections. converter currents.
The reference phase voltages (van*, vbn* and vcn*) for the
A. Control of Machine (PMSGw) Side Converter control of the load voltage at time t are given as,
*
van = vpeak sin(2π ft ) (5)
The objective of the machine side converter is to achieve *
vbn = vpeak sin(2π ft − 120o ) (6)
maximum torque for maximum power tracking with minimum
v *
cn = v p e a k s in ( 2 π ft + 1 2 0 )
o
(7)

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 Fig. 4 Control scheme of machine and load side converters
where f is the nominal frequency, which is considered as 50 V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Hz, and Vpeak is the peak phase to neutral load voltage, which The performance of the wind-hydro hybrid system with the
is considered as 338 V. The phase voltages (van, vbn and vcn) at proposed control algorithm is studied with non linear load
load terminals are sensed and compared with reference (Fig. 5) and a linear load under varying PMSGw rotor speeds
voltages. The error voltages (vanerr, vbner and vcnerr) at the nth due to wind speed variation (Fig. 6). It is observed that under
sampling instant are calculated as, these conditions, the system performs in the desirable manner.
*
vanerr ( n ) = {van ( n ) − van ( n ) } (8) For non-linear load under balanced and unbalanced
* conditions, PMSGw current, PMSGh stator current and the
vbnerr ( n ) = {vbn ( n ) − vbn ( n ) } (9)
load voltage are balanced and are having the total harmonic
*
vcnerr ( n ) = {v cn ( n ) − vcn ( n ) } (10) distortion (THD) within the desired limit as shown in Table-I.
The reference three phase PMSGh currents (isha*, ishb*,
ishc*) The PMSGw is able to run at speeds corresponding to the MPT
are generated by feeding the voltage error signals to PI voltage with varying wind speeds. The simulated transient waveforms
controller with proportional gain Kpv and integral gain Kiv as, of the PMSGw stator current (isw), PMSGh stator current (ish),
* load side converter current (iC), three phase load voltage (vL),
isha ( n ) = isha ( n −1) + K pv (vanerr ( n ) − vanerr ( n −1) ) + K iv vanerr ( n ) (11)
rms value of phase load voltage (Vt), load currents (iL, iLa, iLb
*
ishb ( n ) = ishb ( n −1) + K pv (vbnerr ( n ) − vbnerr ( n −1) ) + K iv vbnerr ( n ) (12) and iLc), load frequency (fL), PMSGw stator frequency (fw),
* battery current (Ib), battery voltage (Vdc), PMSGw stator power
i = ishc ( n −1) + K pv (vcnerr ( n ) − vcnerr ( n −1) ) + K iv vcnerr ( n ) (13)
shc ( n )
(Pw), PMSGh stator power (Ph), load power (PL), battery power
The reference three phase PMSGh currents are then (Pb), coefficient of power (Cp), PMSGw rotor speed (ωrw) and
compared with sensed PMSGh currents (isha, ishb and ishc) to wind velocity (Vw) are shown for different operating
compute the PMSGh current errors. These current errors are conditions.
amplified with gain (K) and the amplified signals are A. Performance of the Hybrid System with Non-linear Load
compared with fixed frequency (10 kHz) triangular carrier In Fig. 5, the performance of the hybrid system is shown with
wave of unity amplitude to generate gating signals for IGBTs balanced/unbalanced non-linear load at a wind speed of 7 m/s.
of the load side converter. The corresponding rotor speed set point for PMSGw is at 5.29
IV. MATLAB BASED MODELING rad/sec and the stator frequency is 16.84 Hz. At this speed, the
mechanical power corresponding to maximum coefficient of
A simulation model is developed in MATLAB using Simulink performance is 14.4 kW. The input mechanical power to the
and sim power system (SPS) set toolboxes. The simulation is PMSGh is taken as 20 kW and the power generated by PMSGh
carried out on MATLAB version 7 with ode3 solver. The is 18.4 kW. Thus the total power generated is (14.4+18.4) kW
electrical system is simulated using SPS. The different loads = 32.8 kW. The system is started with three single-phase
are modeled using resistive and inductive elements and diode diode bridge rectifier loads, each of 11 kW, and three single
rectifier fed resistive loads combined with an LC filter. The phase linear loads, each of 1.67 kW. Since the active power of
unbalanced load is modeled using breakers in individual the load (38 kW) is more than the power generated by the
phases. The parameters of the various components of the system, the battery is supplying the deficit power to maintain
system are given in Appendices. the frequency at the load end constant. The loads are made

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unbalanced by disconnecting non-linear load from phase ‘a’ at voltages are balanced, even though the load currents and the
4.2 s and disconnecting non-linear load from phase ‘b’ at 4.5 load side converter currents are unbalanced.
s. After disconnecting non linear load from phase a, active
B. Performance of the Hybrid System with Varying Wind Speeds
power of the load (27 kW) becomes less than the active power
with Constant Balanced Linear Load
generated, thus the battery absorbs the surplus power to
maintain the frequency of the load voltage constant. After In Fig. 6, the performance of the wind-hydro hybrid system
disconnecting non linear load from phase b, the active power is shown under varying wind speed conditions. The wind-
of the load (16 kW) further reduces and the battery charging hydro hybrid system is started with a wind speed of 8 m/sec
current increases to maintain the frequency of the load voltage and three single phase loads each of 20 kW and 10 kVAR.
constant. Under these conditions, it is observed that the The corresponding rotor speed set point for PMSGw is at 6
magnitude and the frequency of the load voltage are rad/sec and stator frequency is 19.2 Hz. At this speed, the
maintained constant. To demonstrate the harmonic mechanical power corresponding to maximum coefficient of
elimination capability of the system under these performance is 21.8 kW. The input mechanical power to the
conditions, the THDs of the PMSGw stator current, PMSGh is taken as 20 kW and the power generated by PMSGh
PMSGh stator current, load voltage and the load current are is 18.4 kW. Thus the total power generated is (21.8+18.4) kW
given in Table- I. The THDs of the load voltages, PMSGw = 40.2 kW.
stator currents and the PMSGh stator currents are well within
the limit of 5 % as per the IEEE-519 standard, even though the
THDs of the load currents are of the order of 32 %.

Fig. 5 Performance of the system with non-linear load at wind speed of 7 m/s. Fig. 6 Performance of the system with balanced linear load at variable wind
speeds.

Under the balanced/unbalanced non-linear load conditions, the

PMSGw stator currents, PMSGh stator currents and the load

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 6

Since the generated power is less than the active power of E. Gains of PI Controllers
the load, the deficit power is supplied by the battery to Speed controller for PMSGw: Kpω = 500, Kiω = 2000.
maintain the frequency of the load voltage constant. From 4.05 Voltage controller: Kpv = 15, Kiv = 0.05.
s to 4.15 s, the wind speed is increased from 8 m/s to 10 m/s.
The rotor speed set point corresponding to the wind speed 10 VIII. REFERENCES
[1] L. L. Lai and T. F. Chan, Distributed Generation: Induction and
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[13] B. Singh and Gaurav Kasal, “Voltage and frequency controller for a
A. Parameters of 55 kW, 240V, Y-connected 40 pole PMSGw: three-phase four-wire autonomous wind energy conversion system,”
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C. Parameters of 22 kW, 415 V, 50 Hz, Y-connected 24 pole 877.
PMSGh: Ra = 0.1 Ω, Ld = Lq = 12 mH, Inertia = 10 kg-m2,
Friction coefficient = 0.75 Nms.
D. Battery Specifications (Thevenin’s equivalent circuit
parameters): Vocmax = 505 V, Vocmin = 495 V, Cb = 144000
F, Rb = 10 kΩ, Rin = 0.5 Ω, Max. Storage = 200 kWh.

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