MPPT and Yawing Control of a New Horizontal-Axis Wind Turbine with Two Parallel-Connected Generators

Abstract

Commonly used horizontal-axis wind turbines (HAWT) have the following structure: two or three blades, a nacelle which contains power converting equipments, generators, and a tower which supports the nacelle. The generated power is transmitted from the nacelle to the ground. Due to this structure, the power transmission lines are twisted when the nacelle is yawing. Thus, slip ring or additional yaw control mechanism is required. We propose a new structure of HAWT which is free of this transmission line problem. Moreover, the size of inverter can be reduced since two generators are connected in parallel in our mechanism so that power is distributed. A controller for yawing is developed so that it works in harmony with the controller for power generation. A MPPT (Maximum Power Point tracking) algorithm is implemented for the proposed system and efficiency of the system is validated by simulation.