Electric Generators Fitted to Wind Turbine Systems: An Up-to-Date Comparative Study

International audienceThis paper describes a comparative study allowing the selection of the most appropriate innovative structures for electrical machines for a wind turbine system. This study is based on an exhaustive review of the state of the art and on an effective comparison of the performances of the three main conventional electric generator in wind energy application system that are the Doubly-Fed Induction Generator (DFIG), the Squirrel-Cage Induction Generator (SCIG), the Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generator (PMSG), and an innovative machine that is the Switched Reluctance Generator (SRG). The main conclusion drawn by the proposed comparative study is that the innovative switched reluctance generator is able fulfills the major requirements of a wind energy system

Modeling and control strategies of fuzzy logic controlled inverter system for grid interconnected variable speed wind generator

Today, variable speed operation of a permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) is becoming popular in the wind power industry (PI). A variable speed wind turbine (VSWT)-driven PMSG, in general, is connected to the grid using a fully controlled frequency converter (FC). Along with the generator side converter, the FC necessitates the grid side inverter system that has a great impact on the stability issue of the VSWT-PMSG, especially in the case of network disturbance. The well-known cascaded-controlled inverter system has widely been reported in much of the literature, where multiple PI controllers are used in inner and outer loops. However, a fuzzy logic controller deals well with the nonlinearity of the power system, compared to a PI controller. This paper presents a simple fuzzy logic controlled inverter system for the control of a grid side inverter system, which suits well for VSWT-PMSG operation in a wide operating range. This is one of the salient features of this paper. Detailed modeling and control strategies of the overall system are demonstrated. Both dynamic and transient performances of VSWT-driven PMSG are analyzed to show the effectiveness of the control strategy, where simulation has been done using PSCAD/EMTDC

Current source back to back converter for wind energy conversion systems

This paper proposes a new back-to-back current source converter (BTB-CSC) suitable for mediumvoltage high power wind energy conversion systems (WECS). It employs a dual three-phase permanent magnet synchronous generator and two current source inverters with a phase-shift transformer at the grid side. The proposed BTB-CSC has the following advantages: reduced power circuit and control complexity; low switching losses (zero switching losses at the inverter side); and independent control of active and reactive power. PSCAD/EMTDC simulations are used as to assess the steady-state and dynamic behaviour of the proposed system under different operating conditions. It is shown that the proposed WECS can ride-through ac faults. Experimental results from scaled prototype of the proposed WECS are used to validate the simulations

High performance disturbance observer based control system design for permanent magnet synchronous AC machine applications

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonAn electrical machine is one of the main workforces in different industries and serves them in various applications. Machine drive control design involves many technical issues for efficient and robust exploitation. Over several decades, Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor (PMSM) is getting preferred for industrial applications over its counterpart Squirrel Cage Induction Motor (SCIM) drive, because of their higher efficiency, power density, and higher torque to inertia ratio. In the prospective that PMSM drives are considered the drives of the future, there are still technical challenges and issues related to PMSM control. Many studies have been devoted to PMSM control in the past, but there are still some open research areas that bring worldwide researchers’ interests back to PMSM drive control. One of the approaches that may facilitate better performance, higher efficiency, and robust and reliable work of the control system is the disturbance observer-based control (DOBC) with linear and nonlinear output feedback control for PM synchronous machine applications. DOBC is adopted due to its ability to reject external and internal disturbances with improving tracking performance in the variable speed wind energy conversion system (WECS) to maximize power extraction. The high order disturbance observer (HODO) is utilized to estimate the aerodynamic torque-based wind speed without the use of a traditional anemometer, which reduces the overall cost and improves the reliability of the whole system. Also, this method has been designed to improve the angular shaft speed tracking of the PMSM system under load torque disturbance and speed variations. The model-based linear and nonlinear feedback control are used in the proposed control systems. The sliding mode control (SMC) with switching output feedback control law and integral SMC with linear feedback and state-dependent Riccati equation (SDRE) based approaches have been designed for the systems. The SDRE control accounts for the nonlinear multivariable structure of the WECS and is approximated with Taylor series expansion terms. The chattering inherited from SMC is eliminated by the continuous approximation technique. The sliding mode is guaranteed by eliminating the reaching mode in the proposed integral SMC. The model-free cascaded linear feedback control system based on the proportional-integral (PI) controllers use a back-calculation algorithm anti-windup scheme. The proposed speed controllers are synthesized with HODO to compensate for the external disturbance, model uncertainty, noise, and modelling errors. Moreover, servomechanism-based SDRE control, a near-optimal control system is designed to suppress the model uncertainty and noise without the use of disturbance observers. The proposed control systems for PMSM speed regulation have demonstrated a significant improvement in the angular shaft speed-tracking performance at the transients. Their performances have been tested under speed, load torque variations, and model uncertainty. For example, HODO-based SMC with switching output feedback control law (SOFCL) has demonstrated improvement by more than 78% than the PI-PI control system of the PMSM. The performance of the HODOs-based Integral SMC with SDRE nonlinear feedback is improved by 80.5% under external disturbance, model uncertainty, and noise than Integral SMC with linear feedback in the WECS. The HODO-based SDRE control with servomechanism has shown an 80.2% improvement of mean absolute percentage error under disturbances than Integral SMC with linear feedback in the WECS. The PMSM speed tracking performance of the proposed HODO-based discrete-time PI-PI control system with back-calculation algorithm anti-windup scheme is improved by 87.29% and 90.2% in the speed commands and load torque disturbance variations scenarios respectively. The simulations for testing the proposed control system of the PMSM system and WECS have been implemented in Matlab/Simulink environment. The PMSM speed control experimental results have been obtained with Lucas-Nuelle DSP-based rapid control prototyping kit.Center for International Program “Bolashak” of the Ministry of Education and Science Republic of Kazakhsta

Fault analysis and protection for wind power generation systems

Wind power is growing rapidly around the world as a means of dealing with the world energy shortage and associated environmental problems. Ambitious plans concerning renewable energy applications around European countries require a reliable yet economic system to generate, collect and transmit electrical power from renewable resources. In populous Europe, collective offshore large-scale wind farms are efficient and have the potential to reach this sustainable goal. This means that an even more reliable collection and transmission system is sought. However, this relatively new area of offshore wind power generation lacks systematic fault transient analysis and operational experience to enhance further development. At the same time, appropriate fault protection schemes are required. This thesis focuses on the analysis of fault conditions and investigates effective fault ride-through and protection schemes in the electrical systems of wind farms, for both small-scale land and large-scale offshore systems. Two variable-speed generation systems are considered: doubly-fed induction generators (DFIGs) and permanent magnet synchronous generators (PMSGs) because of their popularity nowadays for wind turbines scaling to several-MW systems. The main content of the thesis is as follows. The protection issues of DFIGs are discussed, with a novel protection scheme proposed. Then the analysis of protection scheme options for the fully rated converter, direct-driven PMSGs are examined and performed with simulation comparisons. Further, the protection schemes for wind farm collection and transmission systems are studied in terms of voltage level, collection level wind farm collection grids and high-voltage transmission systems for multi-terminal DC connected transmission systems, the so-called “Supergrid”. Throughout the thesis, theoretical analyses of fault transient performances are detailed with PSCAD/EMTDC simulation results for verification. Finally, the economic aspect for possible redundant design of wind farm electrical systems is investigated based on operational and economic statistics from an example wind farm project

MPPT control design for variable speed wind turbine

Variable speed wind turbine systems (VSWT’s) have been in receipt of extensive attention among the various renewable energy systems. The present paper focuses on fuzzy fractional order proportional-integral (FFOPI) control segment for variable speed wind turbine (VSWT) directly driving permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG). The main objective of this study is to reach maximum power point tracking (MPPT) through combination of advanced control based on FFOPI control applied to generator side converter (turbine and PMSG). The basic idea of the FFOPI controller is to implement a fuzzy logic controller (FLC) in cascade with Fractional Order Proportional Integral controller (FOPI). A comparative study with FOPI and classical PI control schemes is made. The traditional PI controller cannot deliver a sufficiently great performance for the VSWT. However, the results found that the proposed approach (FFOPI) is more effective and feasible for controlling the permanent magnet synchronous generator to mantain maximum power extraction. The validation of results has been performed through simulation using Matlab/Simulink®

A Review of Control Techniques for Wind Energy Conversion System

Wind energy is the most efficient and advanced form of renewable energy (RE) in recent decades, and an effective controller is required to regulate the power generated by wind energy. This study provides an overview of state-of-the-art control strategies for wind energy conversion systems (WECS). Studies on the pitch angle controller, the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) controller, the machine side controller (MSC), and the grid side controller (GSC) are reviewed and discussed. Related works are analyzed, including evolution, software used, input and output parameters, specifications, merits, and limitations of different control techniques. The analysis shows that better performance can be obtained by the adaptive and soft-computing based pitch angle controller and MPPT controller, the field-oriented control for MSC, and the voltage-oriented control for GSC. This study provides an appropriate benchmark for further wind energy research

Large Grid-Connected Wind Turbines

This book covers the technological progress and developments of a large-scale wind energy conversion system along with its future trends, with each chapter constituting a contribution by a different leader in the wind energy arena. Recent developments in wind energy conversion systems, system optimization, stability augmentation, power smoothing, and many other fascinating topics are included in this book. Chapters are supported through modeling, control, and simulation analysis. This book contains both technical and review articles