I'm considering how to add a 3-phase 2kW 350V wind turbine to existing on-grid PV.
Some say it will not work properly and I must have a dedicated (expensive) wind turbine inverter, I want to know why and try to find some cheaper way around it.
The existing PV system consists of 2 strings, each 8 panels, each 450W (Voc=50V Vmp=41V Imp=11A), connected to a Chinese 8kW on-grid inverter with 250-850V MPPT input range (typical string Vmpp is about 300-330V).
The wind turbine 3-phase output will be rectified by 6-diode 3-phase bridge, up to about 500V 4A DC at nominal 15m/s wind.
Safety first, I plan to make an independent emergency brake circuit (basically fire an SCR to put a high load until it almost stops if too high RPM is detected, simple LM2917 circuit should do the trick, pure analog solution with no buggy firmware to crash).
But now here is my crazy idea - use the PV string as dump load (normal non-emergency for moderate wind speeds, basically a high-power shunt voltage regulator well cooled by wind), by connecting the 3-phase bridge DC output (with some series inductance to reduce ripple current) in parallel to it. The inverter should see this like sun was shining when it's not, and try to minimize power loss in PV panels by drawing just enough current to extract maximum power.
Now, this is the part people say will not work, MPPT algorithm will not handle the wind turbine properly - but why?
It should not stop it completely, as minimum MPPT voltage of the inverter is 250V. So at lower wind speeds it will just spin producing very little power until it exceeds 250V.
Power is proportional to cube of wind speed, so 2kW at 15m/s and 500V DC is only 250W at 7.5m/s and 250V DC (just an approximation, but should be reasonably close).
Can the ripple current from 3-phase rectifier cause the MPPT to misbehave (detecting it as fast power changes and trying to compensate)?
Better solution could probably be to add a step-up DC/DC converter that draws power as cube of voltage and produces constant current for PV inverter, but this complicates things and brings EMI issues etc. So it may be acceptable to lose some efficiency with a simpler circuit. What do you think?