Dealing with reactive power

One major problem faced by wind farm owners in India is reactive power. Induction generators used in wind turbines draw considerable reactive power from the grid while supplying active power. The reactive power is required to magnetise the induction generator for its operation.

The need for reactive power increases at higher power generation. The electric generators are provided with capacitors to compensate for the reactive power drawn by the machines. But the grid is not relieved much by these capacitors. One possible solution may be for State Electricity Boards to install shunt capacitor banks to all the wind farm substations to limit the reactive power flow.

I welcome solutions to combat reactive power from the readers of Windpower Monthly so we can adopt them in India.