Abstract

Wind energy is one of the most promising forms of renewable energy. For the constant evolution of power generation technology, the use of sensors is fundamental to the development of wind turbine emulators. A wind turbine emulator allows tests and evaluations of a wind power system, regardless of weather conditions. Therefore, to further improve this technology, this work focuses on the application of a torque transducer and a rotary encoder for the implementation of a closed-loop wind turbine emulator. The sensors provide the torque and speed feedback signals to the computational model so that the model could plot the power curves and produce the set point voltage used by a variable-frequency drive (VFD) to control a three-phase induction motor (TIM). The emulator was implemented using a control algorithm designed on LabVIEW, with an NI 6211 for the data acquisition. Finally, the system emulates the behaviour of a wind turbine, considering the variations in wind speed, aerodynamic phenomena, load effects, and pitch angle. Experimental results demonstrated the effectiveness of using the TIM-VFD assembly for emulating a wind turbine since the wind turbine emulator behaved like a wind turbine in real-time.

Highlights

  • The increasing demand for electrical energy, driven by the development of the world economy, requires new energy strategies for competitiveness in modern markets

  • The results showed that the proposed wind turbine emulators (WTE) was able to provide precise and exact values for the torque and power curves, matching a real wind turbine

  • The experimental validation of the WTE was performed by comparing the experimental results obtained by the test bench with the theoretical aerodynamic behaviour of a real wind turbine

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Summary

Introduction

The increasing demand for electrical energy, driven by the development of the world economy, requires new energy strategies for competitiveness in modern markets Conventional energy sources such as oil, coal, and natural gas present significant financial risks as they have constant price fluctuations. WTEs are capable of reproducing the same aerodynamic behaviour of real wind turbines [5,6,7]. The focus of this paper is to apply a torque transducer and a rotary encoder for signal acquisition, with the aim of developing a hardware-in-theloop WTE. The results showed that the proposed WTE was able to provide precise and exact values for the torque and power curves, matching a real wind turbine.

Aerodynamic Model
Torque Transducer
Rotary Encoder
Test Bench Setup
Sensors and Acquisition Board
Results
Conclusions

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