Optimized strategy for DFIG wind farm considering turbine fatigue

Abstract

In wind farms, the fatigue of a wind turbine reduces its life cycle. Additionally, when turbines are subjected to non-uniform fatigue loads, they tend to fail at certain high fatigue loads, which weakens the reliability of the wind farm and increases operating running costs. To operate the wind farm economically, the concept of equivalent fatigue of wind turbines is proposed, based on which an optimal strategy of active and reactive power dispatching of the wind farm is established. This considers the active power output of the wind farm and the fatigue of the wind turbines simultaneously. The swarm intelligence algorithm is used to solve the global optimal problem. Focusing on the profits of the wind farm, the reference values of optimal active and reactive output power of each turbine are calculated. Simulation results under the condition of free output and limited output verify that the proposed strategy can reduce the fatigues of wind turbines and decrease the losses of the wind farm. Thus, the life span of each wind turbine is extended, and the wind farm profits are increased.