Review of storage schemes for wind energy systems

Wind Energy is a fast developing source of energy since 1996. Despite its advantages, this energy could never be a primary source of electric power to be integrated into the grid even in high wind areas, such as Great Plains, due to its intermittent behaviour. This intermittency will generate intermittent power to grid, which leads to instability, unreliability and power quality problem onto the grid system. One of the widely accepted methods to overcome this problem is by coupling the wind turbine with the energy storage system. This paper reviews the ability of four different types of the energy storage system to mitigate the power fluctuated into the grid, especially during low wind speed. This paper also explains the operating principles and the different methods of charging and discharging the energy storage. The ability of permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) in dealing with variable wind speed also will be discussed. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.