Abstract
Wind energy is a form of renewable energy with the highest installed capacity. However, it is necessary to reduce the operation and maintenance costs and extend the lifetime of wind turbines to make wind energy more competitive. This paper presents a power-derating-based Fault-Tolerant Control (FTC) model in 2 MW three-bladed wind turbines implemented using the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL) Fatigue, Aerodynamics, Structures, and Turbulence (FAST) wind turbine simulator. This control strategy is potentially supported by the health status of the gearbox, which was predicted by means of algorithms and quantified in an indicator denominated as a merge developed by SMARTIVE, a pioneering of in this idea. Fuzzy logic was employed in order to decide whether to down-regulate the output power or not, and to which level to adjust to the needs of the turbines. Simulation results demonstrated that a reduction in the power output resulted in a safer operation, since the stresses withstood by the blades and tower significantly decreased. Moreover, the results supported empirically that a diminution in the generator torque and speed was acheived, resulting in a drop in the gearbox bearing and oil temperatures. By implementing this power-derating FTC, the downtime due to failure stops could be controlled, and thus the power production noticeably grew. It has been estimated that more than 325,000 tons of CO2 could be avoided yearly if implemented globally.
Highlights
The last decade has been characterized by a substantial shift toward renewable energy production, which in 2020 was 27% (7.44 TWh) [1] of the global power generation capacity.Wind energy is one of the most sustainable and important sources of energy, accounting for 21% (1.592 GWh) of total renewable electricity, and 5.9% of the total energy pool (Figure 1)
The analysis in this paper was validated through simulations in National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)-FAST, and by implementing the power-derating control strategy in actual wind turbines and observing the response obtained experimentally
Multiple simulations were conducted in order to analyse the effect of the powerderating strategy in a 2 MW wind turbine (WT) model, taking into consideration the generator speed and torque reduction, as well as the effects on the blade and tower moments and deflections
Summary
The last decade has been characterized by a substantial shift toward renewable energy production, which in 2020 was 27% (7.44 TWh) [1] of the global power generation capacity.Wind energy is one of the most sustainable and important sources of energy, accounting for 21% (1.592 GWh) of total renewable electricity, and 5.9% of the total energy pool (Figure 1). Due to technological advances made in the last decade, wind power has become more competitive with traditional power, the prices of which are experiencing exponential growth (Figure 2). Wind energy needs to solve several challenges that do not allow it to be or more competitive with respect to traditional energy sources or renewable energies like hydropower and solar photovoltaic (PV), which has been the most installed renewable energy in the last three years. Cost reduction in operation and maintenance is required to make wind energy more competitive: On average, 3% of the production time for turbines is downtime due to breakdowns and maintenance issues. In some parks, these figures are even higher, at
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