A Complete Control Scheme for Variable Speed Stall Regulated Wind Turbines

Abstract

Wind turbine generators comprise the most efficient renewable energy source. Nowadays, in order to meet the increasing demand for electrical power produced by the wind, wind turbines with gradually increasing power rating are preferred. The variable speed pitch regulated wind turbine is the most dominant wind turbine technology so far, since it achieves high aerodynamic efficiency for a wide range of wind speeds and at the same time good power control to meet the variable utility grid power requirements. In particular, the power control is performed by altering the pitch angle of the rotor blades and consequently the aerodynamic efficiency of the rotor, through closed loop control, in order to keep the power at the specified level. Although the above technology has been proved to be quite effective, limitations and challenges appear in the construction of Mega Watt scale wind turbines where larger rotor diameters are required. Specifically, as the rotor diameter increases, the challenges and the cost associated with the pitch mechanism increase too, since this mechanism now has to cope with very large and heavy rotor blades. In addition, due to the increasing height of the tower and the associated increase of the cost, lighter constructions are preferred, which are also more flexible and entail lightly damped tower vibration modes. These vibration modes can be easily excited by the action of the pitch controller (Bossanyi, 2003). Consequently, the stable operation of the whole system poses additional challenges on the design of effective pitch controllers and actuators, while at the same time the cost should be kept as low as possible. The variable speed stall regulated wind turbine comprises a technology that has several advantages over pitch regulated wind turbines and has been of particular interest in the literature (Biachi et al., 2007). In particular, this type of wind turbine uses a rotor of fixed blade angle and therefore has a simpler and more robust construction and can have lower requirements for maintenance than the existing pitch regulated wind turbines. Due to these features, these wind turbines can have reduced cost, which is a crucial parameter especially for large scale wind turbines. In addition, they can be more economically efficient for offshore applications, where the maintenance is a major consideration. However, this type of wind turbine is not yet commercially available due to existing challenges in its control. Specifically, a variable speed stall regulated wind turbine is not an unconditionally stable system and has a dynamic behaviour which depends on the operating conditions (Biachi et al., 2007). Due to this feature, the control and the consequent construction of variable speed