Open AccessSMOOTHING OF THE INTERMITTENT POWER PROVIDED BY WAVE POWER PLANTS USING ULTRACAPACITORS AND A NON-LINEAR VECTOR CURRENT CONTROLLED MMC
Author(s) -
Fernando Martinez-Rodrigo,
Santiago de Pablo,
Luis Carlos Herrero-de Lucas,
Dionisio Ramirez
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
dyna
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.177
H-Index - 11
eISSN - 1989-1490
pISSN - 0012-7361
DOI - 10.6036/9850
Subject(s) - smoothing , grid connection , power (physics) , converters , modular design , voltage , electrical engineering , capacitor , electronic engineering , engineering , computer science , control theory (sociology) , physics , control (management) , quantum mechanics , artificial intelligence , computer vision , operating system
This article focuses on smoothing the large power peaks that wave energy converters (WECs) inject into the electrical grid. The study is carried out for a single WEC where the generated power is delivered to the grid by means of a power converter. Two different measures have been considered to improve the power quality of the grid connection. Firstly, the electronic converter has been chosen a modular multilevel converter (MMC) to allow replacing the standard high voltage capacitors of the DC link by low voltage ultracapacitors distributed across the modules of the MMC. Secondly, the MMC is controlled using a non-linear vector current control. The results show that the power delivered to the grid becomes approximately constant when using ultracapacitors. Furthermore, the non-linear vector current source provides the grid connection converter with the necessary fast dynamic response to avoid large variations in the DC voltage.Keywords: modular multilevel converter (MMC); non-linear vector current source; ultracapacitor; wave energy converter (WEC).