Performance Investigation of a Stall-Regulated Wind Turbine Considering Rotor Imbalance Faults

Abstract

Stall-regulated wind turbines (WTs) are widely used to generate electricity for different applications due to their low cost and appropriate power control capability. Rotor imbalance faults for these WTs, however, have not been widely discussed in the literature because they are difficult to model as stall is a nonlinear aerodynamic phenomenon and a comprehensive WT model capable of modeling this phenomenon is needed. In this paper, the performance of a fixed-speed stall-regulated WT is evaluated with respect to different rotor imbalance faults such as mass imbalance, aerodynamic imbalance, and the combination of the two. Power and voltage fluctuations and flicker emission due to various rotor imbalance faults are investigated as well. The paper concludes with simulation results that are obtained from a comprehensive WT model and with concluding remarks about the effect of rotor imbalances on stall-regulated WTs.