Date of Award

6-2022

Degree Name

MS in Electrical Engineering

Department/Program

Electrical Engineering

College

College of Engineering

Advisor

Majid Poshtan

Advisor Department

Electrical Engineering

Advisor College

College of Engineering

Abstract

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s Electrical Engineering Department and the Power Energy Institute have developed a microgrid laboratory with various generators, loads, and protection systems over the past several years. To improve and make the Cal Poly microgrid laboratory more realistic, this thesis outlines the process of improving the EE microgrid setup by adding a wind energy generation system via an induction generator, excitation capacitors, and a protection relay. By adding an induction generator, the microgrid system becomes more resilient to sudden power fluctuations by maintaining a stable voltage and frequency when the microgrid is islanded. To test this, a disturbance was introduced to the islanded microgrid by turning on and off the pump motor load for one second and by adding a torque load.

Without the wind energy system, the system frequency drops below 59.7Hz causing the microgrid to collapse. However, with the wind energy system, the microgrid frequency is kept above 59.7Hz and can remain operational even if the pump motor is loaded to 2 lb•in. This is due to the large inertia the induction generator contains. This is further investigated by creating a Simulink model that models a wind turbine system with wind fluctuations. The model shows that by having a large rotating mass, the inertia keeps the output power stable even if there are rapid wind speed fluctuations.

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