Co-Simulation of an SRG Wind Turbine Control and GPRS/EGPRS Wireless Standards in Smart Grids

Wind energy can be considered a push-driver factor in the integration of renewable energy sources within the concept of smart grids. For its full deployment, it requires a modern telecommunication infrastructure for transmitting control signals around the distributed generation, in which, the wireless communication standards stand out for employing modern digital modulation and coding schemes for error correction, in order to guarantee the power plant operability. In some developing countries, such as Brazil, the high penetration of commercial mobile wireless standards GPRS and EGPRS (based on GSM technology) have captivated the interests of the energy sector, and they now seek to perform remote monitoring and control operations. In this context, this article presents a comparative performance analysis of a wireless control system for a wind SRG, when a GPRS or EGPRS data service is employed. The system performance is analyzed by co-simulations, including the wind generator dynamics and the wireless channel effects. The satisfactory results endorse the viability and robustness of the proposed system.