Paper accepted for presentation at 2003 IEEE Bologna Power Tech Conference, June 23th-26th, Bologna, Italy
Impact and Limitation of Wind Power
Generation in an Island Power System
F. Fesquet, P. Juston, I. Garzulino, EDF, France
Abstract—The consequences of massive wind generation in a
power system depend on many different parameters linked with
the generation installation as well as with the power system they
are connected with. In the case of island networks, this article
presents an assessment method of the maximal admissible
quantity of wind generation, regarding power system dynamic
constraints. This wind power rate depends on several parameters,
including load dynamic, operating rules and wind generator
technology.
Index Terms—wind power generation, power system stability,
power system simulation
I. CONTEXT
The amount of wind energy is sharply increasing in the
world. This is particularly true in some islands. But the impact
of this new generation on those non-interconnected power
systems has to be considered carefully, because the network is
weaker than an interconnected system. The quantity of wind
generation should be limited, but the threshold depends on
many parameters. Some of them are easy to study (substation
of the wind farm connection, protection threshold…), other are
much more difficult to assess (wind profile, changes in the
conventional generation…). The objective of this article is to
recapitulate the most influent parameters, and to deal with
some of them.
II. WHY LIMITING THE WIND POWER PENETRATION
The idea of limiting the connection of wind power in a
system can seem surprising in an era of high development of
this technology and of major concern about environment.
Nevertheless the idea is quite natural after thinking at the
following points. First of all, wind is not a stable resource.
With wind turbine, when there is wind, there is energy,
otherwise nothing. So a power system cannot rely only on
wind power, there must be another way to supply electricity,
other production means or eventually storage. Secondly, their
participation to frequency and voltage is limited with the
presently available technologies, and whatever the technology
may be, a wind turbine cannot increase its production in case
of a frequency decrease, if the wind does not change. Third,
the presently available technologies are voltage sag sensitive.
In case of a fault, they will disconnect in cases when other
generation means would not. So wind power is not as much
0-7803-7967-5/03/$17.00 ©2003 IEEE
reliable as other power sources. That is why a power system
cannot rely on wind power exclusively. So a limit has to be set.
One interesting question is to determine at which level this
limit should be set.
To progress on that subject, this article proposes an
inventory of the parameters that should be ideally taken into
account. An evaluation method of the admissible wind power
rate is then explained, and some particular cases are
developed.
III. IMPORTANT PARAMETERS
The parameters impacting the maximum admissible
quantity of wind generation on a system are quite numerous.
The choice made in this article is to divide them into three
parts : the ones related to the wind generation installation, the
ones related to the power system and the ones linked with the
interface between generation and network. This separation has
an arbitrary aspect, as most of the separations, because many
parameters are strongly linked, and the category they are put in
could be discussed. In fact, this separation has been chosen in
order to highlight the number of different parameters and
actors in this problematic.
A. Parameters Related to the Wind Generation Units
1) Wind Generation Technology
Whatever the technology may be (squirrel cage induction,
doubly fed induction, direct drive synchronous…), its dynamic
has to be taken into account, and mainly : its dynamic in
normal condition (reactive power consumption, dynamic
response to wind changes…) ; its reaction to normal
disturbances (frequency and/or voltage changes) ; the way it
supports (or not) faults or voltage sags. The quality
perturbations (flicker, harmonics…) it could send to the
network shall also be taken into account.
2) Compensation Means
Compensation means can be associated with wind
generators. It is important to know whether they are static or
dynamic, and other characteristics, as response time, reactive
power range (absorption / generation)…
3) Control Strategy
This concerns the wind turbines as well as the
compensation means. The way they are controlled directly
impacts their integration into the grid. For example, the
possibility to turn on/off turbines in case of wind changes
should be considered, as well as the voltage / reactive power
control (constant reactive power, constant voltage…).
B. Parameters Related to the Power System the Wind Farm is
Connected Into
1) Wind Conditions
Wind is a parameter that is linked with the geographical
situation of the electrical network. That is why it is considered
here as a parameter of the power system, even if it is not taken
into account in the way power systems are presently planed
and operated.
Two types of variations should be studied, changes in time
and distribution in space. On the one hand, it is important to
consider possible wind changes during one minute, one hour…
between night and day, between summer and winter… On the
other hand, it is interesting to know if the wind is different or
similar at different substations at the same time, if the windy
areas are well spread over the power system, if they match
with conventional production areas or with consumption
areas…
2) Network Strength
The impact of an event, for example a short circuit, depends
on the shape and size of the network. Moreover, the depth and
length of the possible voltage sags will impact the wind
generator reaction to the event. That is why these parameters
are significant. It is also important to know whether a fault on
transportation line can be detected at all the substations or only
few of them.
Congestions should also be considered, because they could
be either attenuated or amplified by the wind production.
3) Conventional Generation Units
The location of the conventional generation sites as well as
their technical constraints (technical minimum generation
requirement, droop, availability…) and their control will have
an impact on wind integration. And of course these
characteristics should be taken into account not only for the
presently generating units, but also for the future production
means.
4) Load Variations
Load characteristics and modelling is also a significant
aspect of this study. Its variation in time should be known :
how it changes during the day, between day and night, between
summer and winter… And its dynamic should be studied,
particularly how the active and reactive power consumption
will change in case of frequency and/or voltage variation, and
on faults.
5) Operating Rules
Operating rules have to be taken into account, and
particularly : spinning reserve policy, under frequency load
shedding settings, production planning management, quality
rules (impact of defaults on clients) and power quality
requirements ?
6) Data Availability
This is not really a parameter technically related to the
power system, but it should not be forgotten. It is important to
know if data is available about the real performance of the
production units, about loads and their dynamic, about wind…
and also if it is up-to-date and what its precision is.
C. Parameters Related to the Interface Between Generation
Site and Network
As said preliminarily, the parameters classification is
somehow arbitrary, because many parameters are strongly
linked. Two of them are difficult to put on the wind farm or on
the power system size. That is why they are mentioned here.
1) Protection Devices and Settings
Their type and settings represent an important issue. Their
goal is to protect the production installation against damages
that could be caused by network incidents, and to protect the
network consumers from problems internal to the production
site.
In fact, their settings depend on many parameters :
regulation, wind turbine technology (its sensitivity to voltage
sags for instance), type of interface, wind manufacturer
recommendations… The device technology has also an impact.
For example, on an asynchronous machine, a mechanical
speed sensor fixed on the rotor will get a different
measurement from the one given by a sensor located at the
nearest substation.
Usually, the network operator installs protection devices,
and the independent producer also. The settings of the first one
depend on the type of network, and particularly, the
over/underfrequency protection thresholds are adapted for
island networks, because the frequency variations are much
larger than on an interconnected network.
The producer protection settings shall be chosen so that the
installation will not disconnected until it has reached the
network operator limits. So they should also be adapted to
island conditions.
2) Grid Connection
The voltage level and the short circuit power at the
connection substation are important. Whereas the feeder is
only for the wind farm, or is also used by consumers is also
significant. The eventual already existing voltage problems
should also be taken into account.
The parameters that have an impact on the wind power
integration in an island power system are quite numerous.
Some of them are rather connected to the power system, other
have stronger links with the production installation itself.
Ideally, a penetration rate study should consider all these
parameters. But most of the time, it is not feasible in real
cases. That is why we chose the method described in the next
part.
IV. METHOD
The method used consists in assessing the impact of several
parameters independently. This choice has been made in order
to find which parameters are the most important. These results
should help to know if generic studies are meaningful in the
case of isolated network. They should also enable to focus data
searching and further work on the highlighted points.
A. Hypothesis and Modelling
The impact of following parameters has been studied in
priority : wind turbine technology, load level, load dynamic
and spinning reserve. The main hypotheses of this work are the
following :
1) Power System
Generally speaking, the modelled power system is typical
of a French overseas island : generation units' type and size,
network voltage level, load level and operating rules.
Most of the conventional production units are thermal. A
minority is hydraulic. The spinning reserve is at least 11 % for
conventional units.
The voltage level of the transportation network is 63 kV,
and two different networks have been considered : one with
only two lines and two nodes (one with wind generation, and
the other one with the other production units and the load), and
the other typical of a French island.
The events considered are the loss of the largest unit (30
MW) and a short circuit on a transportation line, eliminated by
opening of one line end after 80 ms, and the other one
afterwards.
The under frequency load shedding scheme is typical of a
French tropical island.
2) Load
The consumption level has been set at about 100 MW for
light load and 200 MW for peak load. Two main load type
have been used, one named “static”, and the other “dynamic”.
Combinations between the two are also possible.
"Static" load active and reactive consumptions are linked
with voltage and frequency by the following equations :
a c
U   f 
P = P0   
U   f 
 (1)
 0  0
b d
U   f 
and Q =Q0  
U 
 
f 
(2)
 0  0
where P0 Q0 U0 and f0 are the active power, reactive power,
voltage and frequency related to a nominal conditions ; P, Q,
U and f are the same growth in the present conditions ; a, b, c
and d are coefficient typical of the load.
"Dynamic" load consists of asynchronous motors that
correspond to industrial loads, or some tertiary or residential
load (air conditioning…).
The power system load can be either static or composed of
both type (one part static and the other dynamic), or eventually
several motor types and a part of static load.
With this modelling, it is obvious that the number of load
combination is huge. In some cases, measurements have been
made and it is possible to describe precisely the load dynamic :
motor proportion and type, and static parameters a, b, c and d.
But most of the time, especially for small networks, little data
is available.
So one of the objectives of the study is to assess whether
the maximum wind power rate depends on the load dynamic or
not. If the answer is positive, measurements should be realised
and analysed before setting a limit on wind power rate.
3) Wind Generation
Three different wind turbine technologies have been
studied. The first one is a squirrel cage induction machine with
capacitors bancs. It is the technology that is presently used in
the French overseas islands. This choice is linked not only
with the cost, but also with the fact that these wind turbines
can be laid down, that is particularly useful in these tropical
areas with cyclones. The second technology is a doubly fed
induction wind generator, which is controlled in such way that
it does not produce nor consume reactive energy from the
network. The third technology is a direct drive synchronous
machine. Of course, there are different ways to control a
doubly fed or a synchronous generator, especially because
their electronic interface enables some flexibility in voltage /
reactive power control. In this study, only one control strategy
was used : compensating the reactive power generator
consumption, so that no reactive power is delivered by the
network to the wind farm.
The models used have been developed on Eurostag
software.
For the simplified network, wind production is modelled as
a unique wind turbine, whose size is chosen to realize the
wished wind power rate. Considering a unique wind turbine is
equivalent to assume that all the wind turbines will have
exactly the same reactions. In particular, it supposes that the
wind is exactly the same at all the wind farms and all the wind
turbines. This simplification would not be acceptable
concerning a large interconnected network, but it is rather
acceptable for an island, as a first approximation : the size of
an island is more limited, so the climate will be rather uniform.
Moreover, in most of the cases, one part of the island has the
most favourable conditions to wind power production, so most
of the wind farms will be located in one limited area. With the
realistic network, one wind farm is represented by a unique
wind turbine.
The wind power delivered to the grid is set to the nominal
power of the wind turbine, except in some cases, for each it
will be explicitly mentioned. The impact of the operating point
will be considered separately for one of the technologies.
The protection devices are not taken into account, so the
wind turbine is considered as connected as long as it does not
lose its stability.
B. Criteria
After having defined these hypotheses, another question has
to be handled : if the objective is to know what the maximum
penetration rate is, how will this maximum level defined ? In
other words, what are the criteria that enable to say that a
situation is acceptable or not ?
This is off course a key issue. In this study, it has been
considered that the global power system reliability should not
be weakened by the wind generation with the present operating
rules. So the same type of outage should not lead to worse
consequences than in the present situation.
But it is obvious that this deterministic description is not
enough : if a type of outage is rare in the present situation, and
becomes more frequent with wind production development,
will the same level of disturbances still be acceptable ?
This article uses only the deterministic approach. Of course,
this should be completed by probabilistic considerations. But
the reader should keep in mind that the objective of this study
is to highlight tendencies, and not to have a perfect analysis of
one particular case.
So for this study, it has been considered that a given wind
generation level is acceptable if the network has an acceptable
frequency and that the voltage at the consumer substations is
within the operating range after the stabilisation. So depending
on the case, this verification can be done several seconds after
the events or one minute later.
C. Realisation
The cases are simulated with Eurostag software. Each case
consists of a network, a load level, a load dynamic, a wind
turbine technology (induction, doubly fed induction or
synchronous machine) an event (short circuit or loss of
generation), and a starting production plan (conventional and
wind). The wind production is then increased (increasing of
the size of the wind turbine) and the conventional units
production adjusted. The other parameters of the case remain
constant. So the impact of the event can be assessed for
different wind generation rates.
Hereunder is an example on Fig. 1. The simulated event is a
short circuit. It begins at time zero, and is completely
eliminated at time 150 ms by opening of the second line end.
The plotted curves represent the voltage level at the wind unit
substation in two different cases. The only difference between
the cases is the amount of wind power, and the other
generation units' starting plan, which is necessarily adapted to
wind generation. In one case, the voltage comes back to an
acceptable value after 2,5 s. In the other one, the stabilisation
is not possible. The conventional units' protection devices
disconnect them from the network, the shed load is not
sufficient to balance this production loss, and it leads finally to
a blackout.
25
20
Voltage (kV)
15
10
5 wind farms installation, but a short circuit in this area will
0 loss of production. In this case, there is a coupling between
0 2 4 6
Time (s)
Fig. 1. Voltage curve at the wind unit network substation in case of a short
circuit. Solid line : with an acceptable wind power rate. Doted line : with a
non-acceptable rate.
V. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
With the previously described method, we analysed several
of the parameters listed at the beginning. The first thing to do
was to define the right parameter to describe the quantity of
wind production.
A. Wind Power Rate
To characterise the wind power penetration in a power
system, it is more pertinent to define a ratio, in order to get a
value that can be compared with the situation in other power
systems. The installed capacity ratio is a possibility : it can be
defined as the ratio between the total capacity of installed wind
turbines and the conventional units' global capacity or the total
installed capacity. The ratio that has been chosen here is
different. It is an instantaneous one : the wind power rate has
been calculated as the ratio between wind power delivered to
the network and consumption.
With this choice, simulation results demonstrate that the
maximal wind generation rate does not really depend on the
load level. If a certain amount of wind generation makes a
short circuit lead to a black out at peak load, the same event
will lead to the same consequence for half this amount of wind
power and half this load. It is coherent with the fact that
conventional generation and spinning reserve will also be
halved.
It shows that the ratio between wind production and
consumption is a reliable index to express the supplementary
constraint imposed by wind generation on a power system.
This could imply that, from a certain global amount of
installed wind power, the global wind production should be
not only wind by also load dependant.
B. Short Circuits Impact
With a given wind power rate, a short circuit can lead to a
blackout, whereas the loss of the biggest generation unit would
not. This was expected on the very simplified network,
because the default line is connected to all the generation units.
So all the units will be strongly impacted by the fault, which
consequences are probably exaggerated by the simplified
network. But with the realistic network, similar results can be
observed. That is why the following analyses focus on short
circuits.
On most islands, one area (most of the time, it is one coast)
is windier than the other parts of the island. And most of the
wind farms future grid connection should occur in this region.
So if a fault occurs in this region, it will impact strongly the
voltage at all the substations of the region, because the size of
the island is limited. So a short circuit in another area of the
power system will nearly have the same impact as before the
imply the loss of stability of the wind farms, which means a
line fault and significant loss of generation on several
substations.
Two points can be deduced from this observation : first, a
short circuit (N-1 line) is a more constraining event than a loss
of generation (N-1 generation unit). So maximal wind power
rate assessment should take this event into account in priority.
Second, the coupling of some line fault and loss of a large part
of the wind farms should be taken into account in network and
production planning for power systems with large wind
penetration.
C. Wind Turbine Technologies
As said in the hypotheses, three generator technologies
were studied : squirrel cage induction, doubly fed induction
and direct drive synchronous. In the context of the French
island department, the first one is the only one that is used so
far, and also in the next project. So this technology has been
studied more in detail.
1) Squirrel Cage Induction Machine
This technology is the only one that is presently used in the
French overseas islands. One of the main constraints of this
technology is its important reactive power consumption after a
short circuit. During the short circuit, the resistive torque is
suddenly sharply reduced, so the slip increases. When the
voltage comes back to a significant value, the induction
machine needs reactive energy to reduce its slip and come
back to normal operating conditions. The amount of the
temporarily needed reactive power comes from the network to
the wind generator. In fact, the other generation units produce
it. But the more induction wind generator there are, the more
reactive power they will need, and the less the other generation
units will be able to provide it, because they are less numerous.
So the reactive consumption will decrease the voltage, or more
precisely, it will prevent the voltage from coming back rapidly
to its normal value. And this phenomenon will become more
pronounced as the wind power rate increases, as shown on Fig.
2.
Fig. 2. Voltage curve at the wind unit network substation in case of a short
circuit for different wind power rates.
As said in the hypotheses, the previous simulations consider
that the wind turbines are working at their nominal power. But
it is not only the case. That is why it is interesting to compare
the two following situations : one the one hand, 28 MW
installed wind generation units, working at their nominal
power ; on the other hand, 56 MW installed wind generation
units, working at half their nominal power. So in both cases,
the actual wind generation will be 28 MW and the wind power
rate will be the same. Fig. 3 presents the result of this
comparison : the voltage recovers an acceptable value in a
shorter time if the wind turbines are working at a lower
operating point.
Fig. 3. Voltage profile in case of a short circuit for 28 MW of wind power
produced in the first case by wind farms at their maximum operating point
and in the second case by wind farms functioning at 50% of their maximum
operating point.
So for the same amount of generated power, the smallest
installed power will lead to the greatest perturbation.
Besides, this phenomenon emphasizes the fact that for a
given wind park, the maximum operating point is the most
unfavourable to the system stability. This nominal
configuration corresponds not only to a higher wind power
rate, but also to a greater reactive consumption after the fault.
2) Doubly Fed Induction Machine and Direct Drive
Synchronous Machine
There are several way to control these wind farms,
especially because their electronic interface enables some
voltage / reactive power control. In this study, only one control
strategy was used : compensating the reactive power generator
consumption, so that no reactive power is delivered by the
network to the wind farm (Tan (ϕ)=0).
With this hypothesis, the maximum wind power rate with
doubly fed generators is similar as with squirrel cage induction
machines.
The synchronous machine dynamic is quite different. The
power system could accept more than 10% more wind power
with direct drive synchronous technology than with others two.
But this result considers only the machine stability. For this
technology, the fragility is not this point but the sensitivity of
the power electronic interface. During the short circuit, the
current increases in this interface. This intensity could damage
the electronic, so a protection device disconnects it at a certain
threshold. As said, these devices have not been taken into
account in this study. So these higher performances of the
synchronous machine should be completed by considerations
related to power electronic.
Concerning the wind turbine technologies, the synchronous
machine stability is better than the one of the induction
machine. But this advantage does not assure that the maximum
wind power rate of this recent technology will be higher,
because its interface is voltage sag sensitive.
Another important point is that the operating point has an
impact on the stability. The maximal power output is very
unfavourable to stability.
D. Load Dynamic Parameters
1) Motor Load Part
The part of motor load is a major parameter. They are
asynchronous, so in case of a short circuit, they slow down,
because the electrical torque is temporarily very low. As a
consequence, the slip increases. When the voltage and the
electrical torque come back, the reactive power absorption of
the asynchronous load is very high, until the slip and the motor
speed come back to their normal operating value.
That is why the impact of a short circuit is stronger on a
power system with a high proportion of motor load.
For example, in our study with the simplified network, with
a certain amount of wind power, a short circuit led to a
blackout when the motor load rate was 60 %, whereas the
power system supported the same even without damage with
only 40 % motor load.
Fig. 2 presents two simulated cases that differ only from the
motor load proportion : in one case, only "static" load, not
induction motors ; in the second one, motors represent half the
consumption.
200
Speed (Hz)
150
100
50
0
Voltage (kA)
20
15
10
5 In this study, only thermal units contribute to the spinning
0 reserve. So the impact of the nature of this reserve has not
0 2.5 5 7.5
Time (s)
Fig. 2. Voltage and frequency curve at the wind unit network substation in
case of a short circuit. Solid line : with 50 % static load and 50 % dynamic
load. Doted line : with 100 % static load.
In this comparison, the voltage comes back to an acceptable
value 2,5 s after the beginning of the short circuit; whereas it
cannot reach a correct value with the motors connected. Of
course, in real operating conditions, the motors would be
disconnected by protections because they don't succeed in
speeding up. So a stabilisation of the voltage at half its
nominal value would not happen. Nevertheless, even with a
correct voltage after disconnection, this situation would not be
acceptable, because it load has been disconnected.
As a result, a certain wind power rate can be acceptable
with a certain motor load proportion, and not with another one.
A power system with a higher motor load proportion will
admit less wind power for the considered criterion that the
power system reliability should not be weakened. It shows that
the maximum wind power rate assessment should take into
account the motor load proportion.
2) Static Load Parameters
Four parameters characterise the static load : a, b, c and d.
On an interconnected power system, the frequency variations
are very limited, so the values of the frequency exponents c
and d do not need to be known precisely. On the contrary, on
an island power system, they cannot be neglected.
Concerning the stability in case of a short circuit, the
phenomenon is the following : a short-circuit implies usually
not only a voltage sag but also a frequency positive deviation.
That is why the most favourable parameter values will be a big
value for a, which correspond to a reduced active power
consumption while the voltage is low, and a rather small
values for b, in order to reduce the consumption increase
linked with the frequency increase.
The simulation do confirm these assumption and shows that
even quite little variations in these parameters, like those
indicated in [1] car change the situation : in one case, the
power system will withstand the short circuit, and in the other
one, the same event will lead to the blackout.
It is important to notice that the load dynamic on an island
power system is generally different from an interconnected
situation. Moreover, a precise knowledge of its parameters is
even more important in this case, particularly concerning the
impact of frequency variations.
Nevertheless, if a complete description of the load is not
available, the motor load proportion should be measured as a
priority.
E. Spinning Reserve and Conventional Generation Units
The spinning reserve is necessary for a safe network
operation. It is an ancillary service that is paid by the network
operator. Its size is defined by the operating rules of the
network.
been studied.
1) Natural Variation in Spinning Reserve
As said in the hypothesis, the minimum spinning reserve
has been set at 11 %. In fact, it was not possible to chose a
fixed spinning reserve ratio, because the conventional
generating units are similar for all the cases. For example, if a
production plan enables to have exactly 11% spinning reserve,
then this reserve will increase of 1 MW as soon as 1 MW wind
power is added, because a 1 MW generation increase does not
permit to stop one conventional unit. So, when upgrading the
wind power ratio, the spinning reserve increases until one
thermal unit can be stopped. At that moment, the spinning
reserve ratio is back to 11 %. This cycle is repeated as long as
wind generation is added.
This phenomenon creates naturally a discontinuity, and the
maximum wind power rate will often coincide with the stop of
a supplementary diesel unit.
2) Voluntary Increase of Spinning Reserve
Simulations show that an increase of the spinning reserve
ratio implies an increase of the maximum wind power ratio
acceptable by the network. This was expected, because the
higher the spinning reserve level is, the more conventional
units are connected. So the global active/reactive power
control capacity range is wider, and this configuration allowed
a quicker system stabilisation after an outage. Nevertheless,
the quantity of spinning reserve that should be added to
increase significantly the wind power ratio is quite high.
VI. CONCLUSION
A power system cannot rely only on wind power to feed its
load. A possible way to limit the natural decrease in reliability
linked with this uncertain and nearly unpredictable generation
mean is to limit the wind generation penetration.
A reliable index to describe this penetration is the ratio
between wind production and consumption. It means that a
higher wind production can be afforded by a power system
[7] N. Hatziargyriou, J.A. Pecas Lopes, J. Stefanakis, E. Karapidakis, M.H.
Vasconcelos, A. Gigantidou “Artificial Intelligence Techniques applied
to Dynamic Security Assessment of Isolated Systems with High Wind
Power Penetration,” 2000 Session of CIGRE, Paris, August 2000
[8] J.G. Slootweg, S.W.H. de Haan, H. Plinder, W.L. Kling, "Voltage
Control Capabilities of Various Wind Turbine Concepts", 2000

when the consumption and the conventional production are

IX. BIOGRAPHIES
higher.
Many factors have to be taken in account to assess the
maximum wind power ratio. They concern the wind power Floriane Fesquet received her degree from the Ecole
Centrale Paris in 1997. She has been working for EDF
installations as well as the network, the conventional units and Research and Development since 1999. She is a Research
the operating rules. Engineer in the field of power system dynamics. Her
The load dynamic characteristics and the wind generator experience lies in the area of island power systems and
wind power integration. E-Mail : floriane.fesquet@edf.fr
technology are two major factors that have been studied.
Others will be considered in the on going work. Philippe Juston is Ecole Supérieure d'Electricité graduated. He has been
Concerning the technology, the maximum wind power rate working for EDF Research and Development for more than fifteen years. He
is higher for a synchronous machine, if its electronic interface is an expert in power systems dynamics. E-Mail : philippe.juston@edf.fr
has been designed and dimensioned to support a certain level
Irina Garzulino has been working for EDF Research and Development since
of over current. For asynchronous machines, their operating 2001 as a Research Engineer in the field of power system dynamics. Her
point has a great impact on their robustness to short circuits, experience lies in island power systems planning and wind power grid
and more generally on the power system stability. connection. E-Mail : irina.garzulino@edf.fr
Concerning the load dynamic, the motor load proportion
should be taken into account, as well as the frequency
dependent load variation, which can be neglected in
interconnected networks, but not in an island.
Finally, wind power integration in small network depends
on a lot of parameters related either to geography (wind…) or
to wind farms (technology, control…) or to the power system
(load characteristics, conventional units…). So, ideally, a
reliable assessment of the maximum acceptable wind power
penetration should be made for each case with geographers as
well as wind generator specialists and network operators. Their
conclusions about stability constraints should then be
interpreted depending on the quality requirements and grid
connection studies.

VII. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of
J.L.Fraisse and G.Maugein for their work and interest in that
subject.

VIII. REFERENCES
Books :
[1] P. Kundur, Power System Stability and Control, EPRI Power System
Engineering Series, 1993
[2] T. Burton, D. Sharpe, N. Jenkins, E. Bossanyi, Wind Energy Handbook,
Wiley, 2001

Papers :
[3] I. Garzulino, P. Juston, F. Fesquet, J. L. Fraisse, G. Maugein, " Impact
of Wind Farm Generation into Island Systems", CIRED 2003
[4] M.P.Papadopoulos, N.G.Boulaxis, "Perspectives and Prerequisites for
RES Development in Greece", MedPower 2002, Athens, Greece
[5] G.Betzios "Integrated Energy Supply System for Green Islands (RES
penetration up to 100 %)", MedPower 2002, Athens, Greece
[6] N. Hatziargyriou, J. A. Pecas Lopes, E. Karapidakis and M. H.
Vasconcelos “On-Line Dynamic Security Assessment of Power Systems
in Large Islands with High Wind Power Penetration”, 13th Power
Systems Computation Conference (PSCC), Trondheim, Norway, June
1999