1 THD reduction in Wind Energy System using Type-4 2 Wind Turbine / PMSG applying the Active Front-End 3 Converter Parallel Operation 4

In this paper, the active front-end (AFE) converter topology for the total harmonic 16 distortion (THD) reduction in a wind energy system (WES) is used. A higher THD results in serious 17 pulsations in the wind turbine (WT) output power and in several power losses at the WES. The 18 AFE converter topology improves capability, efficiency and reliability in the energy conversion 19 devices; by modifying a conventional back-to-back converter, from using a single voltage source 20 converter (VSC) to use pVSC connected in parallel the AFE converter is generated. The THD 21 reduction is done by applying a different phase shift angle at the carrier of digital sinusoidal pulse 22 width modulation (DSPWM) switching signals of each VSC. To verify the functionality of the 23 proposed methodology, the WES simulation in Matlab-Simulink® is analyzed, and the 24 experimental laboratory tests using the concept of rapid control prototyping and the real-time 25 simulator Opal-RT Technologies is achieved. The obtained results show a type-4 WT with total 26 output power of 6MVA, generating a THD reduction up to 5.5 times at the WES. 27