A new control strategy for PMSG based wind turbine to improve power smoothing

This paper presents a new simple control strategy for direct driven PMSG wind turbines, using no wind speed sensor. There are several strategies for wind turbine control. Operation of different strategies in terms of power smoothing is compared. New strategy is proposed to have more power smoothing. Performance of the proposed strategy is evaluated by MATLAB/ Simulink simulations and its validity and effectiveness are verified

Energy Storage Technologies for Smoothing Power Fluctuations in Marine Current Turbines

With regard to marine renewable energies, significant electrical power can be extracted from marine tidal current. However, the power harnessed by a marine current turbine varies due to the periodicity of the tidal phenomenon and could be highly fluctuant caused by swell effect. To improve the power quality and make the marine current generation system more reliable, energy storage systems will play a crucial role. In this paper, the power fluctuation phenomenon is described and the state of art of energy storage technologies is presented. Characteristics of various energy storage technologies are analyzed and compared for marine application. The omparison shows that high-energy batteries like sodiumsulphur battery and flow battery are favorable for smoothing the long-period power fluctuation due to the tide phenomenon while supercapacitors and flywheels are suitable for eliminating short-period power disturbances due to swell or turbulence phenomena. It means that hybrid storage technologies are needed for achieving optimal performance in marine current energy systems

Optimization of constant power control of wind turbines to provide power reserves

In several countries, the wind power penetration increased tremendously in the last years. As the current wind turbines do not participate in frequency control nor reserve provision, this may compromise the proper functioning of the primary control and the provision of power reserves. If no actions are taken, increasing levels of wind penetration may result in serious problems concerning the stable operation of the power system. This paper focuses on the provision of power reserves by wind turbines. For this service, the constant power control strategy is chosen as control strategy, as it gives a constant power output and has the ability to provide power reserves. In this way, the wind turbine behaves more like a conventional power plant. The choice of the power reference value is crucial as it determines whether or not a stable operation of the wind turbine is possible and power reserves can be provided. In this paper, an algorithm is proposed to obtain the range of possible reference values. By means of simulations, the optimal reference value to provide power reserves with a single wind turbine is obtained. Also, reserve provision in a wind farm is investigated. It is shown that the provision of power reserves with wind turbines using the constant power strategy is possible, especially in wind farms

Diagnostics and prognostics utilising dynamic Bayesian networks applied to a wind turbine gearbox

The UK has the largest installed capacity of offshore wind and this is set to increase significantly in future years. The difficulty in conducting maintenance offshore leads to increased operation and maintenance costs compared to onshore but with better condition monitoring and preventative maintenance strategies these costs could be reduced. In this paper an on-line condition monitoring system is created that is capable of diagnosing machine component conditions based on an array of sensor readings. It then informs the operator of actions required. This simplifies the role of the operator and the actions required can be optimised within the program to minimise costs. The program has been applied to a gearbox oil testbed to demonstrate its operational suitability. In addition a method for determining the most cost effective maintenance strategy is examined. This method uses a Dynamic Bayesian Network to simulate the degradation of wind turbine components, effectively acting as a prognostics tool, and calculates the cost of various preventative maintenance strategies compared to purely corrective maintenance actions. These methods are shown to reduce the cost of operating wind turbines in the offshore environment

Power systems with high renewable energy sources: A review of inertia and frequency control strategies over time

Traditionally, inertia in power systems has been determined by considering all the rotating masses directly connected to the grid. During the last decade, the integration of renewable energy sources, mainly photovoltaic installations and wind power plants, has led to a significant dynamic characteristic change in power systems. This change is mainly due to the fact that most renewables have power electronics at the grid interface. The overall impact on stability and reliability analysis of power systems is very significant. The power systems become more dynamic and require a new set of strategies modifying traditional generation control algorithms. Indeed, renewable generation units are decoupled from the grid by electronic converters, decreasing the overall inertia of the grid. ‘Hidden inertia’, ‘synthetic inertia’ or ‘virtual inertia’ are terms currently used to represent artificial inertia created by converter control of the renewable sources. Alternative spinning reserves are then needed in the new power system with high penetration renewables, where the lack of rotating masses directly connected to the grid must be emulated to maintain an acceptable power system reliability. This paper reviews the inertia concept in terms of values and their evolution in the last decades, as well as the damping factor values. A comparison of the rotational grid inertia for traditional and current averaged generation mix scenarios is also carried out. In addition, an extensive discussion on wind and photovoltaic power plants and their contributions to inertia in terms of frequency control strategies is included in the paper.This work was supported by the Spanish Education, Culture and Sports Ministry [FPU16/04282]

Power Smoothing Control of a Grid-Connected Marine Current Turbine System Using Supercapacitors

Les variations de la vitesse des courants marins induisent généralement de grandes fluctuations de la puissance produite par une hydrolienne. La houle est considérée comme principale source de variation à très court terme des vitesses de courants. Une stratégie MPPT conventionnelle nécessiterait dans ces conditions d’accélérer ou de décélérer fréquemment la turbine entraînant ainsi de fortes fluctuations de la puissance générée. Cet article se propose alors d’étudier le lissage de la puissance produite par une hydrolienne équipée d’une génératrice synchrone à aimants permanents à laquelle sera associé un banc de supercondensateurs. Le système sera commandé au moyen de stratégies de contrôle appropriées. Pour ce faire un algorithme de MPPT modifié associé à une stratégie de filtrage est proposé. Il utilisera plus particulièrement l’inertie du système pour atténuer les fluctuations de la puissance. Le système de stockage supercapacitif est ensuite utilisé pour lisser les fluctuations résiduelles. Des simulations sur une hydrolienne à entraînement direct de 1.5 MW connectée au réseau montrent que l’association de la stratégie de contrôle proposée à un stockage supercapacitif permet d’injecter une puissance relativement lisse au réseau en présence de perturbations liées à la houle.Variations of marine current speed can lead to strong fluctuations in the power extracted by a marine current turbine (MCT). During short-time period, swell effect is the main cause for the current speed variations. Conventional tip speed ratio Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) algorithm will require the MCT to accelerate or to decelerate frequently under swell effect, which can cause severe fluctuations in the generator power. This paper focuses on power smoothing control of a PMSG-Based MCT system. A modified MPPT algorithm with filter strategy is proposed in generator-side control to use the system inertia for smoothing the fluctuation of generator power. When the current speed is over rated value, the power limitation control will be applied. In the second step, Supercapacitor (SC) Energy Storage System (ESS) is added to compensate the residual power fluctuations. Simulations of a 1.5 MW directdriven grid-connected MCT system are carried out. The results demonstrate that the association of the generator-side filter strategy with the SC ESS system achieves a smoothed power injected to the grid in case of swell disturbances

Evaluation of exponential moving average application to smooth the power output of wind turbine with different control modes

This paper focused on evaluating the application of exponential moving average method into wind turbine to smooth its power output without an energy storage system or an anemometer. Wind turbine control modes including active power control mode and rotor speed control mode are considered. For each control mode, two positions of the Exponential Moving Average method in controller were compared to choose the best position. Additionally, the impact of smoothing factor on wind turbine performance was also considered to determine a reasonable value of the smoothing factor for each control mode. Simulation results in MATLAB/Simulink indicated that, for wind turbine using rotor speed control mode, the Exponential Moving Average method should be applied to reduce the variation of actual rotor speed signal while for wind turbine with the power control mode, it should be used to smooth reference power signal. From the performance of wind turbine with different smoothing factor values, we can suggest that the smoothing factor value should be set at 0.5 and 0.4 for the power control mode and the rotor speed control mode, respectively