On the Architecture of Wind Turbine Control Required for Induction-based Optimal Wind Farm Control

Abstract

In wind farms, the aerodynamic interaction of wind turbines results in power loss of up to 40% and up to 80% larger fatigue loads at downstream turbines. In simulation studies, induction-based wind farm control is observed to mitigate this effect. The approach is to reduce the power, induction and thrust of upstream turbines, thereby weaken the upstream turbines' wake and as a result potentially reduce the power loss and fatigue loads of downstream turbines. This work investigates the design of turbine control required to enable such wind farm control. The current standard approach for turbine control is unsuited and therefore a new control approach is presented in this work. The proposed controller realizes a reduced thrust by changing the blade pitch angle. Turbine controller tests on a single turbine set-up and a wind farm scale set-up are conducted using a dynamic simulation tool that models turbine dynamics, wind farm flow aerodynamics and wind farm control. The simulation results show the suitability of the proposed wind turbine control approach for induction-based wind farm control.