Some Examples of EMI/EMC in Wind Power
Systems and Large Solar Parks
Ener Salinas Kazuo Yamamoto Leonardo Severo
ABB Corporate Research Chubu University WEG
Sweden Japan Brazil
Email: ener.salinas@se.abb.com
Abstract—Here, two renewable energy large scale systems,
namely wind power farms and solar parks, are treated with
examples concerning EMI/EMC. We start describing the
activities of CIGRE working groups C4.30 and C4.44 as
background, to continue with the main sources of interference in
each case. Possible mitigation techniques are addressed and some
examples are described. In the first example, issues related to
instability and resonance produced by central solar inverters on
the electric power system are analyzed and their effects mitigated.
In the second example, a case is presented that is related to a study
of an earthing system that considers a multilayer model of the soil.
We conclude making parallels and differences between EMC
issues and mitigation techniques in both systems.
Keywords— EMC; EMI; central solar inverter; wind power;
photovoltaic (PV); electric power system; active damping; lightning
I. INTRODUCTION
Wind power (WP) and solar photovoltaic (PV) are the two
renewable energy systems with most rapid installed capacity
growth in the last couple of decades. In this paper only
electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) issues of large systems
will be studied, meaning WP farms and PV parks that fulfill 3
conditions: (1) operate in the MW range; (2) connected to the
power grid; and (3) operated by electricity generating
companies. As a consequence of the penetration of these
system into the electric transmission grid two things happen,
on the one hand these systems act as power plants providing
stability and power balance to the grid on the other hand are
susceptible to be affected by external or internal
electromagnetic interferences (EMI).
Two CIGRE working groups, C4.30 and C4.44, have
decided to study these effects on WP and PV systems
correspondingly. Extending a previous study on EMC on
power plants and substations [1]. In the present paper sources
of EMI, effects, mitigation schemes and examples for both
systems will be presented. A comparison between both will
also be made.
II. SOURCES OF INTERFERENCE
In WP systems, more than in PV systems, the plants are
located in remote areas therefore immunity issues are more
relevant than emission. The main sources of interference for
WP systems are: lightning (evident from the use of very tall
towers), high frequency (HF) converters [2]. In wind farms
interconnects can propagate disturbances along power cables,
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Alexandre Pinhel
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overhead lines and telecoms. A particular form of EMI is
caused by electrostatic charging of components of WP
systems. In particular, rotor blades (made from composites) are
able to build-up charge by friction with the surrounding air and
if they are not allowed to discharge (ESD) during that process,
a source of interference is created. Subsequent flash-over
discharges to various parts of the wind turbine can cause
effects on the lightning protection, overvoltage protection
systems and sensitive electronic equipment. To mitigate these
tribology effects, mechanisms facilitating charge decay in
blades are implemented.
In large PV parks, due to extensive lengths of metal
connections, nearby charged clouds tend to discharge as
lightning strikes hitting PV structures and disturbing electronic
equipment. HF switching frequencies from converters are able
to use these metallic structures as antennas to propagate
conductively or even radiate as HF disturbances [3].
III. FIRST EXAMPLE
Central solar inverters play an essential role in making PV
solar energy available to the electric power system (EPS).
When the grid has high impedance (weak grid),
interconnection of central solar inverters may generate
problems of instability and resonance which in turn could lead
to equipment disconnection or low power quality in the grid.
As an example, is presented a case study of a 3.4 MW rated
solar central inverter connected to a 34.5 kV three-phase
medium voltage grid through a step-up transformer, which
raises the voltage from 360 V to 34.5 kV, providing galvanic
isolation between the solar plant and the power grid and
eliminating common mode and zero sequence currents in
the electrical system. Since the transformer has two
secondaries, each ones has a 1.7MW solar inverter connected
to it, as shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1. General diagram of the central solar inverter.
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 The case occurred at test setup in a situation of weak grid
(high impedance) but can happen in field installations
subjected to similar conditions. In situations of high grid
impedance the inverter LCL filter resonant frequency tends
to reduce its value approaching the crossover frequencies of
the control loops [4] [5]. This causes instability problems
in the inverter's interconnection with the grid leading to
disconnection of equipment’s and low power quality in
the grid. The implementation of an active damping control
technique solves this problem by reducing the crossover
frequency of the control loops and increasing the phase
margin ( PM), restoring the system stability as illustrated
at the following section. The Fig. 2 illustrates a general
LCL filter diagram connected to the output of each 1.7 MW
solar unit, where it is noted that the Ls inductance is the
leakage inductance of the medium voltage transformer.
Fig. 2. LCL filter connected to the output of each 1.7MW solar inverter unit.
To perform the needed high power tests, one of the
inverters is configured as DC source controlling the power
flow from the grid to the DC bus. This power flow control
is performed by controlling the DC voltage of the bus
keeping it constant throughout the inverter power range
operation. At the DC bus of the first inverter the second one
is connected, which operates in the AC power feed-in mode
to the grid, circulating the energy between the two
secondaries as shown in Fig. 3.
Fig. 3. General diagram of the test setup.
It is worth mentioning that in this case the role of
the medium voltage transformer is only to keep the
voltage available to the inverters and to feed the system
power losses. As the power circulates through the DC
bus, the inverters operate at unitary PF, that is, only
processing active power. In case of operation with non-
unitary PF, the reactive energy is automatically extracted
from the grid by the inverters through the medium voltage
transformer. The Fig. 4 shows the panoramic view of the
test setup.
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Fig. 4. Panoramic of the test setup: 3.4MW central solar inverter + MV
transformer.
The resonance problem occured when the test setup of
Fig. 3 was connected to the internal medium voltage grid
of the laboratory. Since there was not available a 34.5 kV
voltage grid, a reduced power MV adapter transformer was
added to raise the laboratory voltage from 22 kV to 34.5 kV
and also to feed the system losses, as shown in Fig. 5.
Once the rated power of this adapter transformer is only 500
kW, 15% of the set-up rated power, the grid impedance seen
by the inverters is increased greatly, simulating a condition
very similar as a weak grid [6] [7].
Fig. 5. Test setup power flow diagram: 3.4MW solar inverter +
MV transformer + MV adapter transformer.
The tests were performed using a Yokogawa power
meter connected to the AC Feed-in solar inverter output, as
shown in Fig. 6. At 15% of the nominal power the 780Hz
resonance component appeared and modulated over the
60Hz fundamental component, causing a considerable
increase of the grid current peak. If in this case the inverter
increases more the grid power injected, the current’s peak
increases exponentially due to the positive feedback of the
resonance component, causing the equipment’s
disconnection by the actuation of the over current
protection. The resonance effect is show in the Fig. 7. The
obtained measurements at the nominal operation with the
active damping tuned works with the inverter operating at the
conditions of Table 1.
It is noted that the inverter operates injecting a total
active power of 1.669 MW, closed to the nominal value of
1.7 MW, with RMS output current of 2820 A. The PF was
0.9974, that is, practically unitary with no reactive
circulation. The distortion of the output currents with the
ITHD values of 1.983%, 1.875% and 1.326% is well below
the maximum allowed by NBR16149 Brazilian Standard
[8], normally 5%, basically the same limit adopted in others
standards [9] [10] .
 Fig. 6. Test setup and power meter connection.
Fig. 8. Voltage and current waveforms of the inverter during operation
with active damping control.

IV. SECOND EXAMPLE

Fig. 7. Resonance effect in the grid current at 15% of nominal rated
power
In this example, adapted and summarized from [11], a
realistic and accurate study of an earthing system was made,
not only considering geometrical and construction aspects but
also including a multilayer model of the soil which is based on
soil resistivity measurements and FEM simulations. Further,
the lightning response of the earthing system is studied based
on this soil structure. An application of the results is presented
for a small windfarm with 7 turbines.
To measure soil resistivity, the Wenner four-pin method
[12] is used (most common technique) and this is shown in Fig.
9.

Table 1: Power measurements at nominal operation

IRMS OUTPUT [A] = 2820 A

PTOTAL [W] = 1.669MW
FPTOTAL = 0.9974
ITHD FASEA [%] = 1.983
ITHD FASEB [%] = 1.875
ITHD FASEC [%] = 1.326

It is noted that the inverter operates injecting a total active

power of 1.669 MW, closed to the nominal value of 1.7
MW, with RMS output current of 2820 A. The PF was
0.9974, that is, practically unitary with no reactive
circulation. The distortion of the output currents with the
ITHD values of 1.983%, 1.875% and 1.326% is well below the
maximum allowed by NBR16149 Brazilian Standard [8],
normally 5%, basically the same limit adopted in others
standards [9] [10] . The voltage distortion measured was
about 2.5%. A good adjustment of the control parameters
and the active damping control was proven, guaranteeing the
excellent interconnection stability of the inverter with the
EPS. The voltage and current waveforms in the three phases
are shown in Fig. 8. The resonance at 780 Hz is completely Fig. 9. The Wenner four-pin method (above), Į is the electrode separation and
d is the depth of electrodes, V/I gives the Wenner resistance and from there the
eliminated with a good tuning of the active damping control measured apparent soil resistivity ȡM is computed (below)
parameters.

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The spacing between the electrodes is increased in steps. The specialized software; meanwhile a simple earthing system
measurement of soil resistivity [13] is shown in Fig. 9 (below). model represented by a 10ȍ resistor is used for benchmarking.
The soil resistivity is not constant with the increase of electrode The comparison reveals that the synthesized grounding model
spacing, which implies that the soil structure has at least two gives higher peak voltage than the ten ohm DC resistor model,
layers. but on the other hand it decays faster. The wide frequency
Based on the soil resistivity data the soil structure is range of the synthesized circuit is believed to have better
determined. First, a model for two layers is built then this representation of the actual physical earthing system.
process is generalized to a multilayer model.
The parameters for these models are obtained by a genetic
algorithm (GA) optimization process [14], [15] which mimics
a biological reproduction process and uses the minimization of
a function that takes into account the measured data. The model
for a horizontally stratified two-layer and multi-layer earth
structure is shown in Fig. 10.
The obtained parameters by the GA procedure are used to
compute the soil resistivity by two methods theoretically [14]
and by FEM numerical modeling (COMSOL Multiphysics).
Then by contrasting these results with the measured soil
resistivity the parameters resulting from GA Fig. 11 are
validated.
With the parameters optimized by GA for the three-layer
earth model (Fig.10) the surface potential of the earthing
system is calculated in FEM domain.
Analyzing the potential on the soil surface radially from the
earthing system the rod system exhibits a lower surface
potential than the for the gravity foundation system; however
the gradient of the curves imply that the step voltage of the
monopole system is larger than the gravity foundation
earthing.

Using the three-layer earth model given in Fig. 10 the Fig. 10. Two layer (above) and three-layer (below) models and their respective
frequency response is computed from DC up to 100MHz for results are presented.
the real-life geometry of the mono pile earthing system and the
gravity foundation earthing system by the means of FEM.
After this, an approximation of the frequency response by
using Vector Fitting (VF) is achieved [16], which enables the
establishment of a transfer function from the frequency
response. Finally a lumped circuit is found by circuit synthesis
[17] to represent the same frequency response of the earthing
system.
The advantage of using the equivalent circuit is the
possibility to model the transient of the earthing system
efficiently with limited simulation time. Besides this it is also
easy to implement other electrical components together with
the earthing system, for example transmission line,
transformer, circuit breaker.
The purpose of conducting transient analysis of a wind farm is
to foresee harmful over voltages or surge currents within the
system during lightning exposure, and therefore enable the
Fig 11. Synthesized circuit for the rod earthing system (above) and for the
designers to take their precautions. For the purpose of concrete foundation earthing system (below).
visualizing the overall concept a case study where 7 turbines
connected in a small wind farm is considered. For the design V. CONCLUSION
chosen, different types of earthing systems (foundations) are EMC issues in large WP and PV systems have various
investigated to show the differences in over voltages and surge similarities as they are prone to lightning and HF EMI from
currents for the different earthing impedances. The synthesized converters. Yet, since they operate in rather different
circuits presented in the previous section are used to simulate environment the details of these interference interactions differ
the lightning transient voltages of the wind farm in transient much in the details. Besides there are EMI sources distinctive

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to each one, for example due to the dynamic nature of the
turbine blades these are able to accumulate charges which
represent a problem requiring special mitigation techniques.
VI. REFERENCES
[1] CIGRE TB535 EMC in Power Plants and Substations
C4.208, 2013.
[2] CIGRE WG C4.30 EMC in Wind Energy Systems,
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[3] CIGRE WG C4.44 EMC in Large PV Systems,
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in grid connected applications". 2009 – Department of
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[5] ABNT NBR 16149 "Photovoltaic (PV) systems -
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[7] Wu B. “High Power Converters and AC Drives”, Book,
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an earthing system during lightning strike exposure”,
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