A comparative study of virtual synchronous generator and sinusoidal pulse width modulation in a wind high power conversion chain

The virtual synchronous generator (VSG) and sinusoidal pulse width modulation (SPWM) are two prominent control strategies that have attracted particular interest recently. In this paper, we compare these two inverter control strategies in a 5MW wind power conversion chain. The studied conversion chain includes a wind turbine, a permanent magnet synchronous generator, the power converters, namely the uncontrolled rectifier, and a two-stage inverter connected to the grid via an LCL filter. Our study of the two control methods shows that both strategies reduce the total harmonic distortion (THD) while respecting the grid connection conditions. The simulation results manifest that the VSG strategy has a better THD reduction of 0.99 % which is improved compared to the SPWM with a THD of 1.33%.