Chapter 1 - Introduction

Abstract

This chapter summarizes the most important modeling and control issues on wind turbines from a systems and control engineering point of view that will be discussed in detail in the monograph. A walk around the wind turbine control loops discusses the goals of the most common solutions and overviews the typical actuation and sensing available on commercial turbines. The chapter intends to provide also an updated and broader perspective by covering not only the modeling and control of individual wind turbines, but also outlining a number of areas for further research, and anticipating new issues that can open up new paradigms for advanced control approaches. In summary, wind energy is a fast growing industry, and this growth has led to a large demand for better modeling and control of wind turbines. Uncertainty, disturbance, and other deviations from normal working conditions of the wind turbines make the control challenging, thus motivating the need for advanced modeling and a number of so-called sustainable control approaches that should be explored to reduce the cost of wind energy. By enabling this clean renewable energy source to provide and reliably meet the world's electricity needs, the tremendous challenge of solving the world's energy requirements in the future will be enhanced. The wind resource available worldwide is large, and much of the world's future electrical energy needs can be provided by wind energy alone if the technological barriers are overcome. The application of sustainable controls for wind energy systems is still in its infancy, and there are many fundamental and applied issues that can be addressed by the systems and control community to significantly improve the efficiency, operation, and lifetimes of wind turbines.