UNIT-1

COMPONENTS OF WIND TURBINES

The major components of a wind turbine system are shown in Figure 1.3 (drawing
not to scale). The turbine is formed by the blades, the rotor hub and the connecting
components. The drive train is formed by the turbine rotating mass, low-speed shaft,
gearbox, high-speed shaft, and generator rotating mass. It transfers turbine mechanical output
power up to the generator rotor where it is converted to electrical power. The wind strikes the
rotor on the horizontal-axis turbine, causing it to spin. The low-speed shaft transfers energy to
the gear box, which steps up in speed and rotates the high speed shaft. The high speed shaft
causes the generator to spin, hence generating electricity. The yaw system is used to turn the
nacelle so that the rotor faces into the wind. The low speed Shaft contains pipes for the
hydraulics system that operates the aerodynamic brake .
The high speed shaft is equipped with an emergency mechanical brake which is used in case
of failure of the aerodynamic brake. The generator converts mechanical power of wind into
electrical power. Usually the generator produces power at low voltage and the transformer
steps up the generator output voltage to connected grid voltage. The transformer may be
placed at the bottom of the tower or in the nacelle for losses minimization .
Other components of wind turbine system are the anemometer to measure wind speed and a
wind vane which measure the wind direction. Wind speed information is used to determine
when the wind speed is sufficient to start up the turbine and when, due to high winds, the
turbine must be shut down for safety whereas wind direction measurement is used by the
yaw-control mechanism which helps in orienting the rotor to the wind direction . Electric
fans and oil coolers are used to cool the gearbox and generator.

BASIC COMPONENTS OF A WECS

Aero turbine :- Aero turbine converts energy in moving air to rotary mechanical
energy in general, they required pitch control & yow control for proper operation. A
mechanical interface consisting of step up gear & a suitable coupling transmits the rotary
mechanical energy to an electrical generator.

Yaw control :- for localities with the prevailing wind in one direction, the design
of turbine can be greatly simplified.The rotor can be in a fixed orientation with the
swept area perpendicular to the predominant wind direction.The purpose of the
Controller is to sense wind speed, wind direction, shafts speeds & torque a tone or
more points, o/p power & generator temperature as necessary.
Rotors :- Rotors are mainly of two types.
i) Horizontal axis rotor.
ii) Vertical axis rotor.
One advantages of vertical axis machines is that they operate in al lwind direction &
thus need no yaw adjustment. The rotor is only one of the important components for an
effective utilization, all the components needs to be designed & matched with the rest
of the component.

The windmill head :- they supports the rotor, housing the rotor bearing.It also
houses any control mechanism incorporated like changing the pitch of the blades
for safety devices & tail Vane to orient the rotor to face the wind.
Generator :-
Among the constant speed generator candidates for use are synchronous induction &
permanent magnet type.The generators of choice is thesynchronous unit for large aero
generator system because it is very versatile & hasan extensive data base.
Controls :- Controls system performs the following function.
1. the orientation of the rotor into the wind ( azimuth of yaw );
2. start up and cut-in of the equipment;
3. power control of the rotor by varying the pitch of the blades;
4. shutdown and cut out owing to malfunction or every high winds;
5. protection for the generators, the utility accepting the power & PM
6. Maintenance mode.
Towers :
there are four type of towers.
1. The reinforced concrete tower 2. The pole tower
3. The built up shell – tube tower. 4. The truss tower.
The type of the supporting structure and its height is related to cost and the
transmission system incorporated it is designed to withstand the wind load during
gusts.
Transmission :
transmission options are mechanical systems involving fixed
ratio gears, belts, & chains, singly or in combinations or hydraulic system
involving fluid pumps & motors.
Power Conversion and Power Coefficient
From the expression for kinetic energy in flowing air follows the power contained
in the wind passing an area A with the wind velocity v1:

Here ρ is the specific air mass which depends on air pressure and moisture; for practical
calculations it may be assumed ρ ≈ 1.2kg/m3. The air streams in axial direction through the
wind turbine, of which A is the circular swept area. The useful mechanical power obtained is
expressed by means of the power coefficient cp:

In case of homogenous air flow the wind velocity, whose value before the turbine plane is v1,
suffers a retardation due to the power conversion to a speed v3 well behind the wind turbine,
see Fig. 2.1. Simplified theory claims that in the plane of the moving blades the velocity is of
average value v2 = (v1 + v3)/2. On this basis Betz [Bet26] has shown by a simple extremum
calculation that the maximum useful power is obtained for v3/v1 = 1/3; where the power
coefficient becomes cp = 16/27 ≈ 0, 59. In reality wind turbines display maximum values
cp,max = 0,4 . . . 0,5 due to losses (profile loss, tip loss and loss due to wake rotation).
In order to determine the mechanical power available for the load machine (electrical
generator, pump) the expression (2.2) has to be multiplied with the efficiency of the drive
train, taking losses in bearings, couplings and gear boxes into account. An important
parameter of wind rotors is the tip-speed ratio λ which is the ratio of the circumferential
velocity of the blade tips and the wind speed:

Here D is the outer turbine diameter and Ω is the angular rotor speed. Note that the rotational
speed n (conventionally given in min−1) is connected with Ω(in s) by Ω = 2πn/60.
Considering that in the rotating mechanical system the power is the product of torque T and
angular speed Ω(P = T ·Ω), the torque coefficient CT can be derived from the power
coefficient:

The torque connected with the power according to (1.2) is then

AERODYNAMICS
Air flow over a stationary airfoil produces two forces, a lift force perpendicular to the air flow
and a drag force in the direction of air flow, as shown in Fig. 3. The existence of the lift force
depends upon laminar flow over the airfoil, which means that the air flows smoothly over
both sides of the airfoil. If turbulent flow exists rather than laminar flow, there will belittle or
no lift force. The air flowing over the top of the airfoil has to speed up because of a greater
distance to travel, and this increase in speed causes a slight decrease in pressure.
This pressure difference across the airfoil yields the lift force, which is perpendicular
to the direction of air flow. The air moving over the airfoil also produces a drag force in the
direction of the air flow. This is a loss term and is minimized as much as possible in high
performance wind turbines. Both the lift and the drag are proportional to the air density, the
area of the airfoil, and the square of the wind speed. Suppose now that we allow the airfoil to
move in the direction of the lift force. This motion or translation will combine with the
motion of the air to produce a relative wind direction shown in Fig. 4. The airfoil has been
reoriented to maintain a good lift to drag ratio. The lift is perpendicular to the relative wind
but is not in the direction of airfoil translation.
The lift and drag forces can be split into components parallel and perpendicular to the
direction of the undisturbed wind, and these components combined to form the net force F1
in the direction of translation and the net force F2 in the direction of the undisturbed wind.
The force F1 is available to do useful work. The force F2 must be used in the design of the
airfoil supports to assure structural integrity.
A practical way of using F1 is to connect two such airfoils or blades to a central hub and
allow them to rotate around a horizontal axis, as shown in Fig. 5. The force F1 causes a
torque which drives some load connected to the propeller. The tower must be strong enough
to withstand the force F2.
These forces and the overall performance of a wind turbine depend on the
construction and orientation of the blades. One important parameter of a blade is the pitch
angle, which is the angle between the chord line of the blade and the plane of rotation, as
shown in Fig. The chord line is the straight line connecting the leading and trailing edges of
an airfoil. The plane of rotation is the plane in which the blade tips lie as they rotate. The
blade tips actually trace out a circle which lies on the plane of rotation. Full power output
would normally be obtained when the wind direction is perpendicular to the plane of rotation.
The pitch angle is a static angle, depending only on the orientation of the blade.
Another important blade parameter is the angle of attack, which is the angle γ between the
chord line of the blade and the relative wind or the effective direction of air flow. It is a
dynamic angle, depending on both the speed of the blade and the speed of the wind. The
blade speed at a distance r from the hub and an angular velocity ωm is rωm. A blade with
twist will have a variation in angle of attack from hub to tip because of the variation of rωm
with distance from the hub.
The lift and drag have optimum values for a single angle of attack so a blade without
twist is less efficient than a blade with the proper twist to maintain a nearly constant angle of
attack from hub to tip. Even the blades of the old Dutch windmills were twisted to improve
the efficiency. Most modern blades are twisted, but some are not for cost reasons. A straight
blade is easier and cheaper to build and the cost reduction may more than offset the loss in
performance. When the blade is twisted, the pitch angle will change from hub to tip. In this
situation, the pitch angle measured three fourths of the distance out from the hub is selected
as the reference
MOMENTUM THEORY
BLADE ELEMENT THEORY
sabinin’ s theory
THE IMPULSE THEORY AS APPLIED TO THE HORIZONTAL SHAFT WIND
TURBINE.
The application of the impulse theory to the horizontal shaft wind turbine dimensioning has
been taken over from the airplane propeller elastic theory, which, together with the classical
whirlwind theory has led to highly efficient aerodynamic solutions.
One of the forerunners of this calculation and dimensioning method was G. K. Sabinin [4]
who had his studies in this field published starting from 1923.
3.1Hypotheses:
The application of the impulse theory to the calculation and dimensioning of the propeller –
type horizontal shaft turbines is based on the following main hypotheses: (1) the air jet
crosses the rotor at an even velocity throughout the axial cross section; (3) the rotor lets the
air pass through the blades without determining a local velocity discontinuity and has an
infinite number of blades; (3) the presence of the rotor brings about a pressure variation
between upstream and
downstream, in a fluid domain delimited downstream the catching system by a cylindrical
surface on which an infinite number of whose winding is the cylindrical surface
corresponding to section A-A, fig 2.1, downstream, in its immediate vicinity; (4) the current
tube delimited by the solenoid surface does not allow for the air exchange between its inside
and outside, the air current passing through the rotor being considered isolated from the
ambient; (5) the current non-uniformity increases at the rotor outlet, which leads to turbulent
energy losses and therefore to a lower efficiency of catching the wind energy, while the
current twisting dissipated in alternating whirlpools caused by the instability of the flow
downstream the rotor; (6) air pressure in the 0 – 0 cross-section in fig. 2.1 is assumed to be
equal to the atmospheric one; (7) in cross-section 1-1, pressure rises to values p1<p0, yet
further increasing while aiming asymptotically towards values p0 , far-off downstream; (8) in
the sections downstream the wind turbine rotor, pressure variation is neglected, considering
that the centrifugal forces determined by the refined current twisting after rotor crossing are
small as compared to the forces caused by the axial impulse in the same section; (9) the
pressure difference downstream and upstream the catching system leads to the occurrence of
an axial force upon the rotor “Fa”; as a result of the adequately built rotor geometry there
appears a tangential component “Fr” in the rotation plan, leading to the occurrence of the
catching system useful moment. Obviously, wind-catching systems should be builder so that
the rotor impulse tangential component should be as big as possible.
Fig. 3.1. schematically shows the air current shape upstream and downstream the rotor
according to the above hypotheses, as well as the diagram of the modality the whirlwind
solenoid surface is formed, delimiting the current tube downstream the rotor; upstream the
rotor, namely in the 0-0 section in fig. 2.1, current velocity V0 is equal to the far-off upstream
velocity (infinite upstream); in the catching system rotor section 1-1, and as getting nearer
and nearer to this section, the current axial velocity drops to values V11= V0 – V2, where V1
and V2are velocities induced by the cylindrical turbulent layer generated by the whirlwinds
on top of the rotor blades forming up a current tube. As in the wind turbine rotor there
appears a rotating moment in the section 1-1, that leads to the occurrence of the induced
rotating impulse, counterclockwise to the catching system rotation, as a result of the
whirlwinds induced by the blades having as winding the current tube cylindrical surface as
per the diagram in figure 3.1 there results therefore that downstream the rotor, the air current
rotates at a velocity equal to the velocity V2 in a close enough section, where the whirlwind
tubes do not vicinity, the current peripheral velocity is considered not very much different
from that, so that V2 ~ V2_, where V2 is the rotating velocity at the rotor outlet.

Determining of the peripheral force component and of the axial force component acting upon
the catching system blade Isolating an annular area of r radius, dr thick, off the air current, the
axial component dFa as well as the rotation peripheral component dFr (see fig. 2.3) can be
determined in the corresponding annular section in the rotor plan, fig. 3.1. These components
lead to the occurrence of the interactions in the rotor construction elements (blades). By
applying the impulse theorem and taking into account that, in keeping with second principle
of mechanics, action is equal to reaction, there can be determined the reactions occurring in
the rotor blades, along the axial and tangential directions, respectively,
Where: dFa – elementary axial force, and dFr – the elementary tangential force

V1 = V0 – V1; V1 is the induced velocity before the rotor, caused by the blades
By applying to the air mass delimited by the two concentric cylindrical areas of radius r and
r + dr, as shown in figure 2.1, the Euler theorem for the motional quantity by taking into the
expression of the elementary force caused by the action of the elementary air mass enclosed
between the two cylindrical areas, upon the blades.
dFa = V2 dm;
Where,In a similar way, in keeping with theorem of the motional quantity moment, the
elementary torque created by the tangential rotational force occurring on the elementary
surface of the blades enclosed between the two cylindrical areas of radius r and r+dr, there
results the relation: dFr=U2dm
V1, u1, w1, as well the corresponding velocities in a section downstream the rotor are
witten with the following relations:
V2 = -V1,
of the blades enclosed between the two cylindrical areas of radius r and r+dr, there results the
relation:
The relation represents the ratio of the axial induced velocity to the peripheral
velocity component us. This ratio is variable along the blade from hub to apex.

Relation is fulfilled provided what is in between the brackets is equal to zero. Out of
this condition, there result:

NEW SOLUTION
The general case corresponds to the condition when relation parameters are equal to one
another, yet different from zero, That is conducing to two further conditions:

In the case of induced velocities as well, there can be admitted a module velocity
1i defined as the ratio between the induced peripheral velocity 1 u and the axial velocity i
v as
follows:

By solving out the equation in relation with there results :

There results accordingly:

From which the following expression for 2 v may be inferred:
 UNIT-2
HAWT
Horizontal-axis wind turbines (HAWT) have the main rotor shaft and electrical generator at
the top of a tower, and may be pointed into or out of the wind. Small turbines are pointed by a
simple wind vane, while large turbines generally use a wind sensor coupled with a servo
motor. Most have a gearbox, which turns the slow rotation of the blades into a quicker
rotation that is more suitable to drive an electrical generator.Parts of the wind turbine
Blades
 The lifting style wind turbine blade. These are the most efficiently designed,
especially for capturing energy of strong, fast winds. Some European companies
actually manufacture a single blade turbine.
 The drag style wind turbine blade, most popularly used for water mills, as seen in the
old Dutch windmills. The blades are flattened plates which catch the wind. These are
poorly designed for capturing the energy of heightened winds.
The rotor is designed aerodynamically to capture the maximum surface area of wind in order
to spin the most ergonomically. The blades are lightweight, durable and corrosion-resistant
material. The best materials are composites of fiberglass and reinforced plastic
A gear box magnifies or amplifies the energy output of the rotor. The gear box is situated
directly between the rotor and the generator. A rotor rotates the generator (which is protected
by a nacelle), as directed by the tailvane.
The generator produces electricity from the rotation of the rotor. Generators come in
various sizes, relative to the output you wish to generate. The nacelle is the housing or
enclosure that seals and protects the generator and gear box from the elements. It is easily
removed for maintenance of the wind
The tailvane directs the turbine to gather maximum wind energy.
Type of wind the HAWT works best in
In general, annual average wind speeds of 5 meters per second (11 mph) are required for
gridconnected applications. Annual average wind speeds of 3 to 4 m/s (7-9 mph) may be
adequate for non-connected electrical and mechanical applications such as battery charging
and water pumping. Wind resources exceeding this speed are available in many parts of the
world. A useful way to evaluate the wind resource available at a potential site is the wind
power density
Typical lifespan
The lifespan of a modern turbine is pegged at around 120,000 hours or 20-25 years, however,
they are not maintenance free. As they contain moving components, some parts will need to
be replaced during their working life. Throughout research, the cost of maintenance and parts
replacement is around the 1 cent USD/AU per kWh or 1.5 to 2 percent annually of the
original turbine cost.
HAWT Gearboxes
The gearboxes in the traditional horizontal axis wind turbines currently have an average life
span of 1.5 years. Replacing these gearboxes can be extremely costly.
Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine

Cost Information
Wind turbines for home use vary in price and greatly depend on your electricity needs vs.
wind availability, but you can expect to pay around $12,000 to cater for the average home.
However, bear in mind that cost can be greatly offset by renewable energy rebates offered by
many
governments. The average price for large, modern wind farms is around 1000 USD per
kilowatt electrical power installed. One extra meter of tower will cost you roughly 1500
USD. A special low wind machine with a relatively large rotor diameter will be more
expensive than a high wind
machine with a small rotor diameter. As you move from a 150 kW machine to a 600 kW
machine, prices will roughly triple, rather than quadruple. The reason is that there are
economies of scale up to a certain point, e.g. the amount of manpower involved in building a
150 kW machine is not very different from what is required to build a 600 kW machine. E.g.
the safety features, and the amount of electronics required to run a small or a large machine is
roughly the same. There may also be (some) economies of scale in operating wind parks
rather than individual turbines, although such economies tend to be rather limited
Any Power Output Information
Wind turbines for commercial electricity production usual range from 100 kilowatts to 5
megawatts. At the time of writing, the largest wind turbine in the world had a rotor diameter
of 126 m (390 feet) and the potential to generate enough electricity for 5000 households. For
a 600 kW turbine, the average output is between 1.5 and 2 GWh per year, depending on
wind speed. For every kilowatt hour of electricity produced by wind energy or other green
means, approximately 1.5 pounds of carbon is prevented from going into the atmosphere if
that electricity had been sourced from coal fired power plants. Carbon dioxide is a major
contributor to global warming induced climate change.
Vertical Axis Wind Turbines:We know that there is enough wind globally to satisfy much,
or even most, of humanity’s energy requirements – if it could be harvested effectively and on
a large enough scale. Vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs), which may be as efficient as
current horizontal axis systems, might be , simpler and significantly cheaper to build and
maintain than horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWTs).
They also have other inherent advantages, such as they are always facing the wind,
which might make them a significant player in our quest for cheaper, cleaner sources of
electricity. VAWTs might even be critical in mitigating grid interconnect stability and
reliability issues currently facing electricity producers and suppliers. Additionally, cheap
VAWT’s may provide an alternative to the rain forest destruction for the growing of bio-fuel
crops. This paper describes some research findings of a particular original VAWT design and
argues for increased research and development of this technology.
Electricity from wind currently supplies less than 0.8% [1] of US and barely 0.9% [2]
of world electricity consumption. While it is the fastest growing energy source at an annual
rate of some 25% . If wind is to become a significantly larger contributor to the production of
global electricity, then clearly something different is needed. Perhaps that something is the
vertical axis wind turbine. The convergence of rapidly rising costs, dwindling and threatened
supply, exploding demand, and growing concern of global climate change is fueling renewed
efforts to find viable energy alternatives. Some of the proposed alternatives such as large
scale use of bio-fuels may not be achievable or sustainable—or, ultimately, practical. Other
exotic possibilities such as geothermal energy may be viable but are local and limited. Solar
cell technology is still miniscule, expensive and inefficient. It therefore seems that we are
stuck with oil, coal, natural gas (while they last), and wind.
The wind as a fuel for producing electricity is inexhaustible, free and always available
somewhere–and there is enough of it. Research shows that “the total amount of electricity
that could potentially be generated from wind in the United States has been estimated at
10,777 billion kWh annually—three times the electricity generated in the U.S. today” [7].
Why then are we not harvesting this embarrassment of riches? The answer is, in part, that the
modern wind turbine is something produced by hi-tech companies in advanced countries
using advanced technologies and as a result are expensive and out of the reach of most poor
populations who might have much wind but little money. What is needed is paradigm shift.
Wind turbines need to be viewed as being locally producible devices, made from local
materials, and using local skills. This shift could lead to new levels of local energy
independence and self-sufficiency for a greater portion of the world’s people—in highly
developed and less developed countries alike.
While conventional horizontal axis wind turbines can also be built locally, the skills and
materials needed are advanced and sophisticated. Clearly the world is not covered with such
windmills at this time. Yet, millions of small windmills in towns, villages and cities across
the
planet may be just what we need. The vertical axis turbine may very well be the means to
get this done. Vertical axis wind turbines are inherently simple. The simplest
implementations can be made from the split halves of a drum fitted with a small cheap
generator. These Savonius Rotors, as they are called, are very good for pumping water and
grinding grain, two things that much of the world still does by hand and they can be effective
producers of electricity.

Vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs) come in two varieties (Fig.1).

Vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs) in addition to being simpler and cheaper to build
have the following advantages:
 They are always facing the wind – no need for steering into the wind.
 Have greater surface area for energy capture – can be many times greater.
 Are more efficient in gusty winds – already facing the gust
 Can be installed in more locations – on roofs, along highways, in parking lots.
 Do not kill birds and wild – life – slow moving and highly visible.
 Can be scaled more easily – from mill watts to megawatts.
 Can be significantly less expensive to build – areinherently simpler .
 Can have low maintenance downtime -mechanisms at or near ground level
 Produce less noise – low speed means less noise
 Are more esthetically pleasing – to some.
These inherent advantages make VAWTs a growing field of research and development.
There are new and innovative vertical axis wind turbine designs being explored with renewed
interest and funding. They are all steps in the right direction, but they are not yet enough.
There is a clear need for new thinking and new ideas in the field.
The power contained in a wind stream is given by:
P = 1/2 D A S^3 (1)
P = power, D = air density, A = rotor area, S = wind speed
This leads to the two basic laws of wind energy conversion:
1) The power available from the wind varies as the cube of the wind speed;
2) The capacity of the turbine increases with the square of the surface area (swept area) of the
turbine
These laws have led us to think that the only way to approach wind energy conversion into
electricity is to build the largest turbines possible and place them in the highest wind speed
locations. This is not the whole truth. The equation can be read as saying that power is
proportional to the volume of air times its density times rotor surface area per unit of time:
P = V*D*A/T (2)
P = power, D = density, V = volume, A = swept area, T = time
This implies that optimization is accomplished by processing the largest volume of air per
unit of time over the largest rotor surface area. This is where vertical axis wind turbines may
shine.
For a conventional HAWT the volume of air interacting with the turbine per unit of time is a
thin disk. Each ‘slice’ of air in this disk contacts the turbine blade momentarily and only
once. In the case of a VAWT with the same swept area, that disk becomes a tall cylinder
whose height is the height of the rotor. This means that for a given rotor swept area the
volume of air contact with the rotor surface can be dramatically larger. In the cylinder of
rotation of the VAWT, however, the time of interaction between air and rotor stretches
through the length of its diameter, and the angle of interaction varies continuously through
the cycle, i.e. there is more and longer contact, more opportunity forenergy extraction.In the
HAWT disk of interaction the volume of interaction per slice of time is small.

The VAWT’s cylinder of interaction, and the volume of interaction per time slice is much
larger.
Even if VAWTs were not ultimately more efficient the HAWTs (horizontal turbines)–the
wind is, after all, free – they would still merit our interest . What matters is that there are not
now enough windmills of all types and sizes available to reap the energy harvest of the wind.
The
argument being made here is that effective, useful VAWTs can be built by more people, in
more places using more athand materials than the conventional horizontal axis variety. Let us
build them. As Carl Sagan might say, “millions and millions” of them. The window of
opportunity to defend against global climate change (of the undesirable kind) is estimated by
world scientists at some 10 years [8]. This is a very small window and requires that we take
maximum action now. Today 49% of the capacity for generating electricity in the United
States is fueled by coal [9]. Even if global climate change were not a fact and a threat,
ubiquitous windmills would still be an urgent need. The burning of fossil fuels is
contaminating the air breathe and the foods we consume [10]. Reductions in the production
of sulfur-oxides, nitrogen-oxides, and naturally occurring radioactive materials such as
uranium and thorium will be additional benefits of more wind energy conversion [11].
In summary, Vertical Axis Wind Turbines may be very beneficial in the quest for clean
renewable energy because of:
Cost: Large arrays of VAWTs can be build on much less land, with much less cost, often
using locally available materials and skills. This is
increasingly important as an alternative to the cutting down of precious and irreplaceable rain
forest to grow crops for ethanol production.
Reliability: It may be possible to install vertical axis turbines into existing conventional
wind-farms where grid interconnect bandwidth is available and underutilized. This can
capture more of the lower grade winds lost to the larger turbines and improve productivity of
the wind-farm as a whole.
Empowerment: Vertical axis systems can be more easily built or cheaply purchased, making
personal ownership or small community ownership practical.
Independence: Even very resource poor places may have good winds for energy conversion.
Groups of small turbines harvesting these winds
may provide local energy independence and, perhaps, a ladder out of poverty for many.
Availability: Currently windmills are producing only about 25% of the time. 75% of the
time they are doing nothing. This means that conventional production must remain on-line to
make up the difference–greenhouse gasses and other pollutants not significantly reduced at
these production levels. The advent of powerful software for design, analysis and simulation
allows for many types of new ideas to betested virtually. It is hoped that this paper may help
to motivate some new thinking and the exploration of new ideas. High school students as well
as undergrad and graduate engineering students should be aware of the challenges and
opportunities open to them. Let us dream of a world powered by millions of large and small
windmills– many vertically oriented, many of designs not yet conceived–thousands of clean,
green power stations all over the world.
Blade design:

The ratio between the speed of the blade tips and the speed of the wind is called tip speed
ratio. High efficiency 3-blade-turbines have tip speed/wind speed ratios of 6 to 7. Modern
wind turbines are designed to spin at varying speeds (a consequence of their generator design,
see above). Use of aluminum andcomposite materials in their blades has contributed to
low rotational inertia, which means that newer wind turbines can accelerate quickly if the
winds pick up, keeping the tip speed ratio more nearly constant. Operating closer to their
optimal tip speed ratio during energetic gusts of wind allows wind turbines to improve energy
capture from sudden gusts that are typical in urban settings.
In contrast, older style wind turbines were designed with heavier steel blades, which have
higher inertia, and rotated at speeds governed by the AC frequency of the power lines. The
high inertia buffered the changes in rotation speed and thus made power output more stable.
The speed and torque at which a wind turbine rotates must be controlled for several reasons:
1. To optimize the aerodynamic efficiency of the rotor in light winds.
2. To keep the generator within its speed and torque limits.
3. To keep the rotor and hub within their centrifugal force limits. The centrifugal force from
the spinning rotors increases as the square of the rotation speed, which makes this structure
sensitive to overspeed.
4. To keep the rotor and tower within their strength limits. Because the power of the wind
increases as the cube of the wind speed, turbines have to be built to survive much higher wind
loads (such as gusts of wind) than those from which they can practically generate power.
Since the blades generate moretorsional and vertical forces (putting far greater stress on the
tower and nacelle due to the tendency of the rotor to precess and nutate) when they are
producing torque, most wind turbines have ways of reducing torque in high winds.
5. To enable maintenance. Since it is dangerous to have people working on a wind turbine
while it is active, it is sometimes necessary to bring a turbine to a full stop.
6.To reduce noise. As a rule of thumb, the noise from a wind turbine increases with the fifth
power of the relative wind speed (as seen from the moving tip of the blades). In noise-
sensitive environments, the tip speed can be limited to approximately 60 m/s (200 ft/s).
It is generally understood that noise increases with higher blade tip speeds. To increase tip
speed without increasing noise would allow reduction the torque into the gearbox and
generator and reduce overall structural loads, thereby reducing cost.[3] The reduction of noise
is linked to the detailed aerodynamics of the blades, especially factors that reduce abrupt
stalling. The inability to predict stall restricts the development of aggressive aerodynamic
concepts. .[3]
A blade can have a lift-to-drag ratio of 120,[14] compared to 70 for a sailplane and 15 for an
airliner.[15]
THE HUB:

In simple designs, the blades are directly bolted to the hub and hence are stalled. In other
more sophisticated designs, they are bolted to the pitch mechanism, which adjusts their angle
of attack according to the wind speed to control their rotational speed. The pitch mechanism
is itself bolted to the hub. The hub is fixed to the rotor shaft which drives the generator
through a gearbox. Direct drive wind turbines (also called gearless) are constructed without a
gearbox. Instead, the rotor shaft is attached directly to the generator, which spins at the same
speed as the blades.
BLADE COUNT:

The 98 meter diameter, two-bladed NASA/DOE Mod-5B wind turbine was the largest
operating wind turbine in the world in the early 1990s.
The determination of the number of blades involves design considerations of aerodynamic
efficiency, component costs, system reliability, and aesthetics. Noise emissions are affected
by the location of the blades upwind or downwind of the tower and the speed of the rotor.
Given that the noise emissions from the blades' trailing edges and tips vary by the 5th power
of blade speed, a small increase in tip speed can make a large difference.
Wind turbines developed over the last 50 years have almost universally used either two or
three blades. However, there are patents that present designs with additional blades, such as
Chan Shin's Multi-unit rotor blade system integrated wind turbine.[16] Aerodynamic
efficiency increases with number of blades but with diminishing return. Increasing the
number of blades from one to two yields a six percent increase in aerodynamic efficiency,
whereas increasing the blade count from two to three yields only an additional three percent
in efficiency. Further increasing the blade count yields minimal improvements in
aerodynamic efficiency and sacrifices too much in blade stiffness as the blades become
thinner.
Component costs that are affected by blade count are primarily for materials and
manufacturing of the turbine rotor and drive train. Generally, the fewer the number of blades,
the lower the material and manufacturing costs will be. In addition, the fewer the number of
blades, the higher the rotational speed can be. This is because blade stiffness requirements to
avoid interference with the tower limit how thin the blades can be manufactured, but only for
upwind machines; deflection of blades in a downwind machine results in increased tower
clearance. Fewer blades with higher rotational speeds reduce peak torques in the drive train,
resulting in lower gearbox and generator costs.
 System reliability is affected by blade count primarily through the dynamic loading of
the rotor into the drive train and tower systems. While aligning the wind turbine to changes in
wind direction (yawing), each blade experiences a cyclic load at its root end depending on
blade position. This is true of one, two, three blades or more. However, these cyclic loads
when combined together at the drive train shaft are symmetrically balanced for three blades,
yielding smoother operation during turbine yaw. Turbines with one or two blades can use a
pivoting teetered hub to also nearly eliminate the cyclic loads into the drive shaft and system
during yawing.
Finally, aesthetics can be considered a factor in that some people find that the three-
bladed rotor is more pleasing to look at than a one- or two-bladed rotor.
Blade materials:Wood and canvas sails were used on early windmills due to their
low price, availability, and ease of manufacture. Smaller blades can be made from light
metals such as aluminium. These materials, however, require frequent maintenance. Wood
and canvas construction limits the airfoil shape to a flat plate, which has a relatively high
ratio of drag to force captured (low aerodynamic efficiency) compared to solid airfoils.
Construction of solid airfoil designs requires inflexible materials such as metals
or composites. Some blades also have incorporated lightning conductors.
New wind turbine designs push power generation from the single megawatt range to
upwards of 10 megawatts using larger and larger blades. A larger area effectively increases
the tip-speed ratio of a turbine at a given wind speed, thus increasing its energy
extraction. Computer-aided engineering software such as HyperSizer (originally developed
for spacecraft design) can be used to improve blade design.
Current production wind turbine blades are as large as 100 meters in diameter with
prototypes in the range of 110 to 120 meters. In 2001, an estimated 50 million kilograms
of fibreglasslaminate were used in wind turbine blades.
An important goal of larger blade systems is to control blade weight. Since blade
mass scales as the cube of the turbine radius, loading due to gravity constrains systems with
larger blades.
Manufacturing blades in the 40 to 50 metre range involves proven fibreglass
composite fabrication techniques. Manufactures such as Nordex and GE Wind use an
infusion process. Other manufacturers use variations on this technique, some
including carbon and wood with fibreglass in an epoxy matrix. Options also include prepreg
fibreglass and vacuum-assisted resin transfer molding. Each of these options use a glass-fibre
reinforced polymer composite constructed with differing complexity. Perhaps the largest
issue with more simplistic, open-mould, wet systems are the emissions associated with the
volatile organics released. Preimpregnated materials and resin infusion techniques avoid the
release of volatiles by containing all reaction gases. However, these contained processes have
their own challenges, namely the production of thick laminates necessary for structural
components becomes more difficult. As the preform resin permeability dictates the maximum
laminate thickness, bleeding is required to eliminate voids and insure proper resin
distribution.[20] One solution to resin distribution a partially preimpregnated fibreglass.
During evacuation, the dry fabric provides a path for airflow and, once heat and pressure are
applied, resin may flow into the dry region resulting in a thoroughly impregnated laminate
structure.[20]
Epoxy-based composites have environmental, production, and cost advantages over other
resin systems. Epoxies also allow shorter cure cycles, increased durability, and improved
surface finish. Prepreg operations further reduce processing time over wet lay-up systems. As
turbine blades pass 60 metres, infusion techniques become more prevalent; the traditional
resin transfer moulding injection time is too long as compared to the resin set-up time,
limiting laminate thickness. Injection forces resin through a thicker ply stack, thus depositing
the resin where in the laminate structure before gelatin occurs. Specialized epoxy resins have
been developed to customize lifetimes and viscosity.[22]
Carbon fibre-reinforced load-bearing spars can reduce weight and increase stiffness. Using
carbon fibres in 60 metre turbine blades is estimated to reduce total blade mass by 38% and
decrease cost by 14% compared to 100% fibreglass. Carbon fibres have the added benefit of
reducing the thickness of fiberglass laminate sections, further addressing the problems
associated with resin wetting of thick lay-up sections. Wind turbines may also benefit from
the general trend of increasing use and decreasing cost of carbon fibre materials.
THRUST:The resultant ratio of lift and drag forces constitutes angle of rotation of blade
includes angle of attack.
POWER OUTPUT FROM PRACTICAL TURBINES
The fraction of power extracted from the power in the wind by a practical wind turbine is
usually given the symbol Cp, standing for the coefficient of performance. Using this notation
and dropping the subscripts of Eq. 8 the actual mechanical power output can be written as

The coefficient of performance is not a constant, but varies with the wind speed, the
rotational speed of the turbine, and turbine blade parameters like angle of attack and pitch
angle.
The Darrieus turbines operate with fixed pitch while the large horizontal axis turbines
normally have variable pitch. The pitch is varied to hold Cp at its largest possible value up to
the rated speed uR of the turbine, and then is varied to reduce Cp while Pw continues to
increase with wind speed, in order to maintain the output power at its rated value, PmR. This
is shown in Fig. 7. It is not practical to hold Cp constant with pitch control because of
manufacturing and control limitations, so it will vary with wind speed even for a fixed
rotational speed, variable pitch blade. A variation of Cp versus u is shown in Fig. 8 for the
MOD-2 wind turbine. The turbine starts producing power at a hub height wind speed of 6.3
m/s (14 mi/h) and a Cp of about 0.28. A maximum Cp of 0.41, defined as Cpm, occurs at 9
m/s (20 mi/h). Designing the blades to have a maximum coefficient of performance below the
rated wind speed helps to maximize the energy production of the turbine.
The rated wind speed for the MOD-2 is 12.3 m/s (27.5 mi/h) at hub height. Cp has
dropped to about 0.36 at this wind speed. The coefficient of performance at rated wind speed
can be defined as CpR. Two curves for Cp are shown in Fig. 8 for wind speeds above the
rated wind speed, the upper curve showing the capability of the rotor and the lower curve
showing Cp under actual operating conditions. The turbine is shut down at 20 m/s (45 mi/h)
to prevent damage from such high winds, and the actual Cp is well under 0.1 when this wind
speed is reached.
Shaft power output of a variable-pitch turbine. Coefficient of performance versus wind
speed.
The curve shown in Fig. 8 is only valid for one rotational speed, in this case 17.5
revolutions per minute (r/min). When the rotational speed is changed, rωm changes and
causes the angle of attack to change. This in turn changes Cp at a given wind speed. It is
often convenient for design purposes to have a single curve for Cp, from which the effects of
changing either rotational speed or wind speed can be determined. This means that the
rotational speed and the wind speed must somehow be combined into a single variable before
such a single curve can be drawn. Experiments show that this single variable is the ratio of
the turbine tip speed.
rmωm to the wind speed u. This tip speed ratio is defined as,

where rm is the maximum radius of the rotating turbine in m, ωm is the mechanical angular
velocity of the turbine in rad/s, and u is the undisturbed wind speed in m/s. The angular
velocity ωm is determined from the rotational speed n (r/min) by the equation,

The variation of Cp with λ for the Sandia 17-m Darrieus is shown in Fig. This particular
machine will be used for illustration purposes in this chapter. All horizontal axis propeller
turbines and other Darrieus machines will have generally similar curves. This curve is for a
machine similar to the one shown in Fig. 1.5 with the difference being that each blade has
two struts extending from the blade to the center of the vertical shaft. Performance is
somewhat better without the aerodynamic losses introduced by the struts, but this will not
affect our discussion. This particular machine has a rotor diameter of 16.7 m, a rotor height of
17 m, and a rotor swept area of 187 square meter.

Coefficient of performance Cp versus tip-speed ratio λ for Sandia 17-m Darrieus

turbine. Two blades; 42 r/min.
The size of this machine was chosen on the basis of available aluminum forming equipment
and other hardware and may not be an optimum size. A good design procedure is to select
several sizes, perhaps arbitrarily, and then determine manufacturing costs, energy production,
and unit energy costs for each size. The detailed designs for each size reveal possible
difficultiesthat do not appear in the conceptual design stage. The fact that no one builds a
satisfactory not be discovered until the detailed design stage. Such designs, with certain sizes
and operating
conditions arbitrarily selected to allow a detailed design to continue, are often called point
designs.
 The Darrieus is operated as a fixed pitch turbine since there is no convenient way of
varying the pitch. The blade motion causes the relative direction of the air seen by the blade
to change continuously during a revolution. This means that the angle of attack is
continuously changing during rotation. The coefficient of performance shown in Fig. 9 is
therefore an average valuefor one complete revolution.
As mentioned earlier, the Darrieus turbine is normally not self starting. Fig. indicates
that Cp is very low for a Darrieus turbine operating at tip speed ratios below about two. The
correspondingly low shaft power is insufficient to overcome friction so the Darrieus turbine
needs a mechanical assist to get its tip speed up to at least twice the wind speed. At tip speed
ratios above two, the Darrieus is able to extract enough power from the wind to accelerate
itself up to the desired operating angular velocity. As it accelerates, it passes through the
rated coefficient of performance CpR at λR, reaching the maximum coefficient of
performance Cpm at λm. If there is no load on the turbine it will continue to accelerate until
the runaway tip speed ratio λr is reached. In high winds, the turbine angular velocity may
easily exceeddesign limits at λr, hence the turbine should not be operated without a load.
The normal operating mode of a large wind turbine will have the turbine rotating at
fixed rotational speed (e.g. 42 r/min for the data of Fig. 9). For fixed rmωm, the tip speed
ratio will be large for a low wind speed and get smaller as the wind speed increases. As the
wind speed increases from a small value the mechanical power output increases due to both
the greater power in the wind and the larger values of Cp. This variation is shown in Fig. 10.
Eventually Cp reaches its maximum Cpm at the tip speed ratio λm. For higher wind speeds
(lower tip speed ratios) the power in the wind continues to increase while Cp starts to
decrease. The product of CpPw continues to increase until the rated mechanical power output
PmR is reached at CpR and λR. After that point, Cp decreases at an even greater rate than
before, so Pm starts a slow decrease.
It should be mentioned that the rated power can be selected at a value below the
maximum possible power. In fact, this may be a common practice for purposes of guarantees.
A Darrieus turbine which can produce 30 kW at a wind speed of 12 m/s may be rated at 25
kW at a wind speed of 10 m/s, for example. A customer testing a machine would find power
flows equal to and slightly above the nameplate rating and would conclude that the machine
was performing as advertised. If the actual power never reached the advertised rating, due
perhaps to manufacturing tolerances or installation errors, the customer may become angry
and initiate
legal action against the manufacturer.
We could therefore distinguish between the coefficient of performance and tip speed
ratio at rated wind speed and at the wind speed where maximum power is actually obtained.
This may be necessary in some situations, but normally is not required. We shall therefore
use CpR and λR to refer to both the rated power and the maximum power cases.

Charcteristics shows experimental data recorded at an average temperature of 15oC and an

average pressure of 83 kPa. The power output of the same turbine in air at standard
conditions would be nearly 30 percent greater at the same wind speeds.
Shaft power output of Sandia 17-m Darrieus turbine at 42 r/min in an average
pressure of 83 kPa and an average temperature of 15’ C.
The lack of a convenient means for changing the pitch of the Darrieus blades is seen
to not be a serious disadvantage because of this self limiting characteristic of power output. If
the fixed speed load is able to accept the maximum possible mechanical power, no additional
braking or loading is necessary as the wind speed increases above its rated value.
Let us now consider the effect of changing the rated rotational speed on the operation of the
turbine. A higher rotational speed means that a given value of λ will occur at a higher wind
speed. If the turbine characteristic does not change with rotational speed, then the same CpR
applies at the same λR, which is at a higher wind speed than before. The higher wind speed
means that a larger shaft power will be delivered. A 25 percent increase in wind speed means
the power in the wind has increased by (1.25)3 = 1.95. Therefore, if we operate the turbine
shows at a 25 percent higher rotational speed [42(1.25) = 52.5 r/min], we would expect
approximately twice the peak shaft power output observed at 42 r/min. This indeed is the
case, as shown by Fig. 11. In fact, CpR has increased slightly so our 30-kW (mechanical
power) machine at 42 r/min has become a 67-kW machine at 52.5 r/min.

Shaft power output of Sandia 17-m Darrieus at two angular velocities in an ambient
pressure of 83 kPa and an ambient temperature of 15’’C.
At first glance, it would appear that 52.5 r/min would be a superior choice over 42
r/min. This may not be the case, however, because the extra power is available only at the
higher wind speeds, above about 9 m/s. Below 9 m/s the power output at 52.5 r/min is
actually less than for 42 r/min. Wind speeds below 9 m/s are usually more common than
speeds above 9 m/s, so additional power output at higher wind speeds may be more than
offset by reduced power output at lower wind speeds. The choice of rated rotational speed
therefore depends on the wind regime of a given site. A site with a mean wind speed of 9 m/s
could probably justify the 52.5-r/min machine while a site with a mean speed of 6 m/s could
not.
Number of blades
The limitation on the available power in the wind means that the more blades there
are, the less power each can extract. A consequence of this is that each blade must also be
narrower to maintain aerodynamic efficiency. The total blade area as a fraction of the total
swept disc area is called the solidity, and aerodynamically there is an optimum solidity for a
given tip speed; the higher the number of blades, the narrower each one must be. In practice
the optimum solidity is low (only a few percent) which means that even with only three
blades, each one must be very narrow. To slip through the air easily the blades must be thin
relative to their width, so the limited solidity also limits the thickness of the blades.
Furthermore, it becomes difficult to build the blades strong enough if they are too thin or the
cost per blade increases significantly as more expensive materials are required.
For this reason, most large machines do not have more than three blades. The other factor
influencing the number of blades is aesthetics: it is generally accepted that three-bladed
turbines are less visually disturbing than one- or two-bladed designs.
 The three-bladed concept is the most common concept for modern wind turbines. A
turbine with an upwind rotor, an asynchronous generator and an active yaw system is usually
referred to as the Danish concept. This is a concept, which tends to be a standard against
which other concepts are evaluated. Relative to the three-bladed concept, the two and one-
bladed concepts have the advantage of representing a possible saving in relation to the cost
and weight of the rotor.
However, their use of fewer rotor blades implies that a higher rotational speed or a
larger chord is needed to yield the same energy output as a three-bladed turbine of a similar
size. The use of one or two blades will also result in more fluctuating loads because of the
variation of the inertia, depending on the blades being in horizontal or vertical position and
on the variation of wind speed when the blade is pointing upward and downward. Therefore,
the two and onebladed concepts usually have so-called teetering hubs, implying that they
have the rotor hinged to the main shaft. This design allows the rotor to teeter in order to
eliminate some of the unbalanced loads.
One-bladed wind turbines are less widespread than two-bladed turbines. This is due to
the fact that they, in addition to a higher rotational speed, more noise and visual intrusion
problems, need a counterweight to balance the rotor blade.

Stall control:
The fixed speed stall control concept includes single speed and two speed stall control
concepts. The wind turbine with the fixed speed stall control concept consists of mainly a
tower
and foundation, nacelle and yaw system, rotor blades, bearings, brakes, a multiple-stage
gearbox, and a squirrel cage induction generator (SCIG) directly connected to the grid
through
a transformer as illustrated in Fig. 2-1-1. It is known as “Danish concept”. The rotor blades
have
simple construction because the blade is directly fixed on the hub. The angle of the rotor
blades
of this concept is adjusted only once when the turbine is erected. The power limitation over
the
rated wind speed is achieved by the stall effect of the rotor blades. The wind turbine with this
concept is completely passive while the wind causes the power regulation by itself. Therefore
this concept is called a passive stall control concept or shortly a stall control concept. This
concept is very simple, robust and old concept on the market. Wind turbines of this concept
were mostly manufactured during the 1980’s and 1990’s.
However, this concept is not very flexible because the performance of rotor blades is optimal
only at one wind speed. Therefore the efficiency of rotor blades is not constant over wide
range
of the wind speed. This concept also causes varying amounts of active and reactive power
from
the grid, resulting in flicker. During the 1980’s this concept was extended with a capacitor
bank
for reactive power compensation and with a soft-starter for smoother grid connection.
The two speed stall control concept has been developed to overcome a disadvantage of single
speed stall control concept by using a pole changeable SCIG. A pole changeable SCIG,
which
leads two rotation speeds, has been used for both the fixed speed (active) stall control concept
and the fixed speed pitch control concept with a multiple-stage gearbox. A pole changeable
SCIG is useful to increase the efficiency of rotor blades and to reduce the audible noise at
low
wind speeds.
In general, the pole pair number is mostly equal to 2 or 3 in this type commercial
fixed-speed wind turbine with SCIG, so that the synchronous speed in a 50Hz-grid is equal to
1500 or 1000rpm. Therefore, a three-stage gearbox in the drive train is usually required.
The advantages of SCIG are well-known and robust technology; easy and relatively cheap
mass production of the generator. In addition, there is no electrical connection between stator
and rotor system. Furthermore, it enables stall regulated machines to operate at a fixed speed
when it is connected to a large grid which provides a stable control frequency, which is the
most
common type of generator used for the grid connected wind turbines
The disadvantages of SCIG are as follows:
• The speed is not controllable and variable only over a very narrow range. Any wind
speed fluctuations are directly translated into electromechanical torque variations,
rather than rotational speed variations. This causes high mechanical and fatigue
stresses on the system (turbine blades, gearbox and generator), and may result in
swing oscillations between turbine and generator shaft. Also the periodical torque
dips due to the tower shadow and shear effect are not damped by speed variations,
and result in high flicker values. Fluctuations in power output are hardly damped,
compared with wind speed fluctuations. The turbine speed cannot be adjusted
to the wind speed to optimize the aerodynamic efficiency. It must be mentioned
however that many commercial wind turbines can switch between two pole-pair
numbers, e.g. p=2 or 3, by a rearrangement of the stator windings connection. This allows
setting up one turbine speed for low wind speeds (p=3 or higher) and one for
high wind speeds (p=2), but it does not provide continuous speed variations.
• In general, a three-stage gearbox in the drive train is necessary. Gearboxes
represent a large mass in the nacelle, and also a large fraction of the investment
costs. They are relatively maintenance intensive and a possible source of failures.
• It is necessary to obtain the excitation current from the stator terminals. This makes it
impossible to support grid voltage control. In most cases, capacitors are gridconnected
parallel to the generator to compensate for the reactive power
consumption.
Active stall control
The fixed speed active stall control concept can supply the power to the grid as good as
possible by turning the rotor blades which cause or delay the stall effect.
This concept has been used by the manufacturers as Bonus (currently Siemens) and Neg-
Micon (currently Vestas) on the market.
2.1.3 Pitch control
The fixed speed pitch control concept has the opposite turning direction of the rotor blades
compared to the fixed speed active stall control concept in regulating wind turbine power.
This concept needs more powerful pitch drives than the fixed speed active stall control
concept,
and has problems to apply into large wind turbines because of the late turning of rotor blades
by
the high inertial of the blades.
Yaw system
The yaw system of wind turbines is the component responsible for the orientation of the wind
turbine rotor towards the wind.
Active yaw systems:The active yaw systems are equipped with some sort of torque
producing device able to rotate the nacelle of the wind turbine against the stationary tower
based on automatic signals from wind direction sensors or manual actuation (control system
override). The active yaw systems are considered to be the state of the art for all the modern
medium and large sized wind turbines, with a few exceptions proving the rule (e.g. Vergnet).
The various components of the modern active yaw systems vary depending on the design
characteristics but all the active yaw systems include a means of rotatable connection
between nacelle and tower (yaw bearing), a means of active variation of the rotor orientation
(i.e. yaw drive), a means of restricting the rotation of the nacelle (yaw brake) and a control
system which processes the signals from wind direction sensors (e.g. wind vanes) and gives
the proper commands to the actuating mechanisms.
The most common types of active yaw systems are:
 Roller yaw bearing - Electric yaw drive - Brake: The nacelle is mounted on a roller
bearing and the azimuth rotation is achieved via a plurality of powerful electric drives.
A hydraulic or electric brake fixes the position of the nacelle when the re-orientation
is completed in order to avoid wear and high fatigue loads on wind turbine
components due to backlash. Systems of this kind are used by most of the wind
turbine manufacturers and are considered to be reliable and effective but also quite
bulky and expensive.
 Roller yaw bearing - Hydraulic yaw drive: The nacelle is mounted on a roller bearing
and the azimuth rotation is achieved via a plurality of powerful hydraulic motors or
ratcheting hydraulic cylinders. The benefit of the yaw system with hydraulic drives
has to do with the inherent benefits of the hydraulic systems such as the high power-
to-weight ratio and high reliability. On the downside however the hydraulic systems
are always troubled by leakages of hydraulic fluid and clogging of their high pressure
hydraulic valves. The hydraulic yaw systems often (depending on the system design)
also allow for the elimination of the yaw brake mechanism and their replacement with
cut-off valves.
 Gliding yaw bearing - Electric yaw drive: The nacelle is mounted on a friction based
gliding bearing and the azimuth rotation is achieved via a plurality of powerful
electric drives. The need for a yaw brake is eliminated and depending on the size of
the yaw system (i.e. size of the wind turbine) the gliding bearing concept can lead to
significant cost savings.
 Gliding yaw bearing - Hydraulic yaw drive: The nacelle is mounted on a friction
based gliding bearing and the azimuth rotation is achieved via a plurality of powerful
hydraulic motors or ratcheting hydraulic cylinders. This system combines the
characteristics of the aforementioned gliding bearing and hydraulic motor systems.
Passive yaw systems: The passive yaw systems utilize the wind force in order to adjust the
orientation of the wind turbine rotor into the wind. In their simplest form these system
comprise a simple roller bearing connection between the tower and the nacelle and a tail fin
mounted on the nacelle and designed in such a way that it turns the wind turbine rotor into the
wind by exerting a "corrective" torque to the nacelle. Therefore the power of the wind is
responsible for the rotor rotation and the nacelle orientation. Alternatively in case of
downwind turbines the tail fin is not necessary since the rotor itself is able to yaw the nacelle
into the wind. In the event of skew winds the "wind pressure" on the swept area causes a
yawing moment around the tower axis (z-axis) which orients the rotor.
 The tail fin (or wind vane) is commonly used for small wind turbines since it offers a
low cost and reliable solution. It is however unable to cope with the high moments required
to yaw the nacelle of a large wind turbine. The self-orientation of the downwind turbine
rotors however is a concept able to function even for larger wind turbines. The French wind
turbine manufacturer Vergnet has several medium and large self-orientating downwind wind
turbines in production.
Passive yaw systems have to be designed in a way that the nacelle does not follow the
sudden changes in wind direction with too fast a yaw movement, in order to avoid high
gyroscopic loads. Additionally the passive yaw systems with low yaw-friction are subjected
to strong dynamic loads due to the periodic low amplitude yawing caused by the variation of
the inertia moment during the rotor rotation. This effect becomes more severe with the
reduction of the number of blades.
The most common passive yaw systems are:
 Roller Bearing (free system): The nacelle is mounted on a roller bearing and it is free
to rotate towards any direction. The necessary moment comes from a tail fin or the
rotor (downwind wind turbines)
 Roller Bearing - Brake (Semi-active system): The nacelle is mounted on a roller
bearing and it is free to rotate towards any direction, but when the necessary
orientation is achieved an active yaw brake arrests the nacelle. This prevents the
uncontrolled vibration and reduced gyroscopic and fatigue loads.
 Gliding Bearing/Brake (Passive system): The nacelle is mounted on a gliding bearing
and it is free to rotate towards any direction. The inherent friction of the gliding
bearing achieves a quasi-active way of operation.

Blade section shape (blade profile)

Apart from the twist, wind turbine blades have similar requirements to aero plane
Wings, so their cross-sections are usually based on a similar family of shapes. In
General the best lift/drag characteristics are obtained by an aerofoil that is fairly thin:
it’s thickness might be only 0-5% of its “chord” length (the length across the blade,
in the direction of the wind flow).

If there were no structural requirements, this is how a wind turbine blade would be
proportioned, but of course the blade needs to support the lift, drag and gravitational forces
acting on it. These structural requirements generally mean the aerofoil needs to be thicker
than the aerodynamic optimum, especially at locations towards the root (where the blade
attaches to the hub) where the bending forces are greatest. Fortunately that is also where the
apparent wind is moving more slowly and the blade has the least leverage over the hub, so
some aerodynamic inefficiency at that point is less serious than it would be closer to the tip.
Having said this, the section can’t get too thick for its chord length or the air flow will
“separate” from the back of the blade – similar to what happens when it stalls – and the drag
will increase dramatically.
To increase thickness near the root without creating a very short, fat,
aerofoil section, some designs use a “flatback” section. This is either a standard section
thickened up to a square trailing (back) edge, or a longer aerofoil shape that has been
truncated. This reduces the drag compared to a rounder section, but can generate more noise
so its suitability depends on the wind farm site.

There is a trade-off to be made between aerodynamic efficiency and structural efficiency:

even if a thin blade can be made strong and stiff enough by using lots of reinforcement inside,
it might still be better to make the blade a bit thicker (hence less aerodynamically efficient) if
it saves so much cost of material that the overall cost of electricity is reduced. The wind is
free after all; it’s only the machine that we have to pay for. So there is inevitably some
iteration in the design process to find the optimum thickness for the blade.
EFFICIENCY
Rotor design
3.1. Air foil theory – an introduction
Figure 3.1 shows a typical wing section of the blade.
The air hits the blade in an angle αA which is called the “angle of attack”. The reference line”
for
the angle on the blade is most often “the chord line” – see more in Chap. 4 for blade data. The
force on the blade F can be divided into two components – the lift force FL and the drag
force FD and the lift force is – per definition – perpendicular to the wind direction.
POWER REGULATION
The principle of wind turbines power generation is conversion of the air kinetic energy into
rotating mechanical power of the turbine blades. At this moment in time the most common
used
wind turbine is the horizontal-axis propeller type, having two or three blades mounted on the
top of a tower. The selection of number of blades of a wind turbine is not an easy design
choice. Three blade systems cost more than two blade systems, but two blade wind turbines
have to operate at higher rotational speeds than three blade ones. This way the individual
blades of a two bladed wind turbine need to be lighter and have bigger stiffness and are
therefore more expensive [22]. The basic formula for the power of the wind in an area A,
perpendicular to the wind blowing direction is given by the formula [23]:
where P is the power, ρ is the air density, v is the wind speed and Cp is the power coefficient,
which describes the fraction of the wind captured by a wind turbine. According to Betz law,
the value of the power coefficient has a theoretical limit of 59.3% [24].
Most wind power sites experience high wind speeds only for a few hours per day. That is
Why some form of power regulation is necessary if a design is supposed be cost-effective.
The design Of wind turbine components is regulated by the need to withstand mechanical
loads. There are two Basic aerodynamical blades designs, which allow to reduce those loads.
The wind power can be Regulated either by stall-regulation - designing the blades to go into
an aerodynamic stall above a Certain wind speed level or by pitch-control - designing the
blades as feathered in order to spill the Unwanted power. An advantage of stall-regulation is a
simplified mechanical design of the rotor, Which allows the blades to be attached rigidly to
the turbine hub? Moreover, stall-regulation will not Permit power excursions from very
strong and gusty winds to pass on to the drive train. It also has disadvantages, which include:
the need for a rotor brake, technical difficulties of aerodynamic blades stall design, motor
driven start and stronger aerodynamic noise .
Figure 2 shows a steady wind speed - power curve, which reflects the regulated power
achievable from the wind turbine. At very low wind speeds the generated power is too low to
be
utilized. At typical designs the wind turbines are started when the wind speed exceeds 3-4
m/s, what is denoted as the cut-in wind speed. The wind turbine is started at the cut-in wind
speed and its power increases with the 3rd power of the wind speed, up to the moment when
the rated wind speed is reached. At wind speeds range from 12 m/s up to about 25 m/s the
power is limited to the rated power of the wind turbine with the help of stall-regulation or
pitch-control systems. When the wind speed exceeds 20-25 m/s the wind turbines are
normally brought to standstill to avoid high mechanical loads on the turbine elements. This
wind speed is called the cut-out wind speed.

UNIT-3
FIXED SPEED WIND SYTEMS
At the beginning of the 90s’, the installed wind turbines ran mainly at fixed speed.
This means that independent Of the speed of the incident wind, the rotor runs at a fixed speed
determined by the grid frequency, by the gear of the gearbox and by the number of poles of
the electrical generator. As better explained in the following chapter, fixed-speed turbines are
equipped with an induction motor (usually a squirrel-cage motor) directly connected to the
grid, with a soft-starter to reduce the starting current and a capacitor bank to compensate the
reactive power. These types of turbines are designed to reach the maximum efficiency at a
given wind speed. Nevertheless, to increase the power extracted from the fluid vein, the
induction generators of some fixed-speed turbines have two stator windings, one of them with
a higher number of poles to operate at low wind regimes, whereas the other with the pole
number lower than the first one, so as to reach the steady state condition at medium-high
wind speeds.
From the constructional point of view, these wind turbines have the advantages of
being simple, robust, and reliable and with contained costs for electrical equipment. But they
consume reactive power; have high mechanical stresses and limited quality controls on the
power fed into the grid. Each fluctuation of the wind speed causes a change in the mechanical
torque, which results in a fluctuation of the power fed into the grid. In grids with a low short-
circuit power level, this causes voltage fluctuations with negative effects for the loads in
parallel and can create inconvenience to persons because of the possible flicker generation
Passive stall regulation:Taking into consideration a constant-speed wind turbine, as the
wind speed increases so does the angle of attack of the blades. Above a certain speed, the air
flow begins separating from the airfoil causing a condition called stall. Initially this
phenomenon is close to the hub and progresses towards the blade tip as wind speed increases,
thus providing an automatic passive mechanism of power regulation. This type of regulation
was largely used in the first commercialized wind turbines equipped with asynchronous
generators and three fixed-Pitch blades, rigid hub and designed to have optimum TSR at low
wind speeds. In this type of turbines, when the mechanical brakes are released, the rotor
reaches the operating speed; then the asynchronous generator is grid-connected, or the rotor is
started through the generator itself (when it operates as asynchronous motor) up to the
operating speed. However, passive-stall method caused some problems such as vibrations,
instability, difficulties in foreseeing both entering stall as well as returning to laminar flow.
Wind power plants
Two-speed, passive stall-regulated turbines
Some turbines were equipped with two-speed asynchronous generators through which it was
possible tocpartially regulate entering the stall region, thus reducing the effect of wind speed
fluctuations. This control system is however to be included in fixed speed systems since it is
not a real variable-speed system even if the turbine operates as a two-established-speed fixed
machine. Energy gains are only 2 to 3%, but sometimes two-speed operation is deemed
useful because of considerations linked to the total noise generated by wind turbines.
Two-speed regulation has the following disadvantages:
• additional cost of generator
• further control switchgear requiring additional maintenance
• turbine speed control required for each single speed
• loss of energy, whereas the generator is disconnected during speed changes.
Pitch regulation
When the wind speed becomes excessive, the rotor is stopped by increasing the Pitch angle
up to feathering (thus, the aerodynamic load on the blades is reduced to the minimum). As the
wind speed rises, it is possible to reduce the Pitch angle instead of increasing it to
intentionally cause stall. Thanks to this method, the amplitude of the blade rotation necessary
to adjust the power is lower than that necessary to feathering (minimum variations required
0-4°); therefore in theory regulation takes less time, but the control of the power becomes
difficult with stalled blade.
At high wind speed the average value of the extracted power is kept close to the rated
power of the generator. On the contrary, below the rated power, the Pitch is generally kept
constant to limit the wear of the regulation mechanism: this has the consequence of reducing
the efficiency of the turbine but improves the total reliability
of the system.
GENERATING SYSTEM
Wind - electric conversion system consists of the following components:-
1) Wind Turbine (WT)- Converts wind energy into rotational(mechanical) energy
2) Gear system and coupling (G/C)- It steps up the speed and transmits it to the generator
rotor
3) Generator (G)- Converts rotational energy into electrical energy.
Types of generators used:-
 For Small rating systems - P.M.type d.c. generators
 Medium rating systems - P.M.type d.c. generators
 Induction generators
 Synchronous Generators
 Large rating systems - Induction generators (3-phase )
 Synchronous Generators (3 phase)
4) Controller(C)-Senses wind direction, wind speed generator output and temperature and
initiates appropriate control signals to take control action.
5) Yaw motor gear- The area of the wind stream swept by the wind turbine is maximum
when blades face into the wind. Alignment of the blade angle with respect to the wind
direction to get maximum wind energy can be achieved with the help of yaw control that
rotates wind turbine about the vertical axis. In smaller wind turbines, yaw action is controlled
by tail vane whereas, in larger turbines, it is operated by servomechanism.
 Apart from the above components, protective schemes for excessive temperature rise
of generator, against electrical faults and turbulent wind conditions are also provided in the
system.
Practically, Wind power generating system ratings are divided into three groups:-
Small up to 1KW
Medium 1 KW to 50 KW
Large 200KW to Megawatts

SCHEMES FOR WIND POWER GENERATION

Based on the speed and frequency, generally following schemes are identified:
I. CSCFS (Constant Speed Constant Frequency Scheme):-
Constant speed drives are used for large generators that feed the generated power to the grid.
Commonly synchronous generators or induction generators are used for power generation

If the stator of an induction machine is connected to the power grid and if the rotor is driven
above Synchronous speed, Ns, the machine delivers a constant line frequency (f=PNs/120)
power to the grid. The slip of the generators is between 0 and 0.05.The torque of the machine
should not exceed max. torque to prevent ‘run away’(speed continues to increase unchecked).
Compared to synchronous generator, Induction generators are preferred because they are
simpler, economical, easier to operate, control and maintain and have no synchronization
problem. However, Capacitors have to be used to avoid reactive volt ampere burden on the
grid.
In these types of turbines induction electrical machines (also known as asynchronous
machines), generally used as motors for many industrial applications, are used for the
conversion of the mechanical energy extracted from the wind into electrical energy. In the
wind turbines, on the other hand, these electrical machines are used as generators, above all
because of their constructional simplicity and toughness, their relative
cost-effectiveness and for the simplicity of connection and disconnection from the grid The
stator of an induction machine consists of copper windings for each phase, as the stator of
synchronous machines.
On the contrary, the rotor in squirrel-cage motors has no windings, but consists of a
series of copper bars set into the grooves of the laminated magnetic core. Some induction
machines can have windings also on the rotor and in this case they are called wound rotor
machines. They are expensive and less sturdy than the previous type and are used in variable-
speed wind turbines, as better explained in the following paragraphs. Induction machines
require a given quantity of reactive power to function. This power shall be either drawn from
the grid or delivered locally through a capacitor bank, which shall be properly sized so that
self-excitement of the synchronous generator can be avoided in case of grid disconnection
due to failure. Besides, these machines need an external source at constant frequency to
generate the rotating magnetic field and consequently they are connected to grids with high
short-circuit power able to support frequency. When working as a generator, the
asynchronous machine is speeded up by the wind rotor up to the synchronous speed and then
connected to the grid, or it is at first connected to the grid and started as a motor up to the
steady state speed. If the first starting method is used, the turbine clearly is self-starting and
therefore the Pitch control must be present, whereas the second method is used for passive
stall-regulated turbines.
In this case the control system stores the wind speed and defines the speed range
within which the generator is to be started. Once the synchronous speed has been achieved,
the wind power extracted makes the rotor run in hyper synchronous operation with negative
slip, thus supplying active power to the grid.
As a matter of fact, since the slip has values in the order of 2%, the deviation from the
rated speed is very limited and that’s why the use of these machines makes the wind turbine
run at constant speed. To reduce the starting current, a soft starter is usually interposed
between the asynchronous machine and the grid.
DECIDING FACTORS
A brief introduction to the aerodynamics of wind turbines
Wind turbine power production depends on interaction between the wind turbine rotor and
the wind. The mean power output is determined by the mean wind speed, thus only steady-
state aerodynamics have been considered to be important in this project and turbulence has
been ignored. The first aerodynamic analyses of wind turbines were carried out by Betz [40]
and Glauert [41] in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Power available in the wind is given by:

In the above equation, ρ is air density, A is area swept by blades, and Vwind is wind speed.
Betz proved that the maximum power extractable by an ideal turbine rotor with infinite
blades from wind under ideal conditions is 59.26% (0.5926 times) of the power available in
the wind. This limit is known as the Betz limit. In practice, wind turbines are limited to two
or three blades due to a combination of structural and economic considerations, and hence,
the amount of power they can extract is closer to about 50% (0.5 times) of the available
power. The ratio of extractable power to available power is expressed as the rotor power
coefficient CP. The extractable power can thus be written as:

Modern utility-scale wind turbines use airfoils (shapes similar to an aircraft wing) shown in
Figure 2.2 to harness the kinetic energy in the wind. Two wind-induced forces act on the
airfoil; lift and drag. Turbines depend predominantly on lift force to apply torque to rotor
blades, though some torque is caused by the drag force as well. The lift force is shown
perpendicular to effective airflow direction; it is primarily responsible for the torque that
rotates the rotor. The tips of the blades, being farthest from the hub, are responsible for the
major part of the torque.
Depending on the type of turbine, one of the technique may be used to prevent high wind
speeds from causing the wind turbine to operate at higher-than-rated power output. This
condition is undesirable because it causes premature wear and tear on the turbine components
and reduces the life of the turbine. The first of these is known as stall regulation. In this
technique, the wind turbine blades are designed such that when the angle of attack becomes
too high (at high wind speeds), a wake forms above the airfoil, aerodynamic lift fails, drag
increases, and the net power extracted from the wind falls. The advantages of stall-regulated
wind turbines are that they are simple since no extra controllers are necessary. However,
there is a considerable disadvantage; power that could have been captured is lost. The
alternative strategy is known as blade pitching. In this strategy, a control system changes the
angles of the tips of the rotor blades or rotates the entire blade to control the angle of attack
and to control extracted power. Pitch-regulated wind turbines can extract more energy from
similar wind regimes than non-pitch controlled machines, but require additional controllers
and machinery, and increase complexity and cost. Fixed-speed wind turbines may be stall-
regulated or they may employ blade pitching.

Cross section of wind turbine blade airfoil (left) and relevant angles (right).

Tip-speed ratio calculations

The tip-speed ratio or TSR, denoted by λ, is the ratio of the blade-tip linear speed to the wind
speed . The TSR determines the fraction of available power extracted from the wind by the
wind turbine rotor. In a fixed-speed wind turbine, the blade tip speed is held relatively
constant since the rotor is connected directly to the induction generator via a gearbox, and the
induction generator is directly connected to the grid. The TSR can be calculated as follows:

COEFFICIENT OF
POWER
The TSR, together with
the user-defined blade pitch angle , are used to calculate the rotor power coefficient,
denoted by CP. The rotor power coefficient is a measure of the rotor efficiency and is defined
as:

There is a constant value of λ which, if maintained for all wind speeds, will result in an
optimal CP curve and optimal power extraction from the wind. Variable-speed wind turbines
are equipped with a pitch-change mechanism to adjust the blade pitch angle and obtain a
better power coefficient profile.
In case of a fixed-speed wind turbine which is directly connected to the grid, the electrical
generator speed, ωgen, is essentially fixed by the grid frequency. In turn, the rotor speed,
ωrot, is also fixed since it is directly connected to the generator via a gearbox. As a result, the
blade tip speed is practically unchanged. As the wind speed increases, the CP of a direct-
connect fixed-speed wind turbine will increase at first, achieve an optimal value at rated wind
speed (the wind speed corresponding to rated power output), and decrease at higher wind
speeds. In the model, a set of generic CP curves [43] shown in Figure 2.2 are used to
calculate the value of CP.
AERODYNAMIC TORQUE CALCULATION:
The aerodynamic torque developed by the rotor blades is calculated in this subsystem using
the theory given in [42]. The kinetic energy E (in J) of an air mass m (in kg) moving at a
speed Vwind (in m/s) is given by:

If the air density is ρ (kg/m3), mass flow through an area A is given by:

Thus, an equation for the power (in W) through a cross-sectional area A normal to the
wind is:

In the case of a wind turbine, area A is the area swept by the rotor blades. Only a part of
this power may be captured due to the non-ideal nature of the rotor, hence the need for the
coefficient CP. The result is shown in Equation 2.8.

The aerodynamic torque developed (in Nm) can then be calculated:

Wind Turbine Modeling

This chapter describes the development of a generic dynamic model for a fixed-speed wind
turbine, the most basic type of utility-scale wind turbine in operation today. Fixed-speed wind
turbines are called so because they operate with less than 1% variation in rotor speed. They
employ squirrel-cage induction machines directly connected to the power grid. They usually
employ pitch control to control power extracted from the wind, though they may also employ
stall control. Typically in pitch-controlled turbines, the blades are not rigidly fixed to the hub,
and can be rotated a few degrees to turn them out of or into the wind. In stall-controlled
turbines, the rotor blades are fixed to the hub, and are designed so that the air flow over the
blades changes from streamlined (i.e., laminar) flow to turbulent flow at high wind speeds.
This limits the mechanical power extracted from the wind at high wind speeds in order to
protect the induction machine from overloads. A side effect of stall regulation is that energy
capture from the wind is sub-optimal. The models described here and in the next chapter
employ the stall control method for simplicity.
Variable-speed wind turbines are designed to operate at a wide range of rotor speeds.
Their rotor speed varies with the wind speed or other system variables, based on the design
employed. Additional speed and power controls allow variable-speed turbines to extract more
energy from a wind regime than would be possible with fixed-speed turbines. For Type-3 and
Type-4 turbines, power converters are needed to interface the wind turbine and the grid. The
advantage of converter-based systems is that they allow independent real and reactive power
control.
Fixed-speed wind turbines are low-cost, robust, reliable, simple to maintain, and
proven in the field [20]. A large number of fixed-speed wind turbines have been installed
over the past decade and a half, and more continue to be installed. While variable-speed wind
turbines form the bulk of new installed capacity, a niche for fixed-speed wind turbines still
exists. Therefore, it can be expected that fixed-speed wind turbines will continue to play a
role in the power systems of the future.
While there are many wind turbine dynamic models available in the literature [19, 36–
39], the focus is largely on modeling variable-speed wind turbines. These models often
oversimplify the mechanical drive train and aerodynamics, since the aim is to evaluate power
and rotor speed control mechanisms. Thus, there exists a gap in the literature which the
model described in this chapter attempts to address. While the model’s central purpose is to
study the interaction between the wind turbine and the power system, it may also be used to
examine the interaction of aerodynamic, mechanical, and electrical functions within the wind
turbine. This model is a platform on which more advanced variable-speed wind turbine
models can be developed. The complete model has been implemented in PSCAD/EMTDC
for the purposes of this report. However, the model is straightforward to implement using
other popular simulation packages such as MATLAB/SIMULINK. The model is based on
parameters from an NEG Micon 1.5-MW turbine (specifications provided in Appendix A).
Wind turbines are designed to capture the kinetic energy present in wind and convert it to
electrical energy. An analogy can be drawn between wind turbines and conventional
generating units which harness the kinetic energy of steam. From a modeling standpoint, a
fixed-speed wind turbine consists of the following components:
• Turbine rotor and blade assembly (prime mover);
• Shaft and gearbox unit (drive train and speed changer);
• Induction generator;
• Control system.
The interaction between each of the components listed above determines how much
kinetic energy is extracted from the wind. Figure 2.1 illustrates the interaction between the
wind turbine components. Modeling of the electrical subsystems is fairly straightforward, as
power system modeling software usually includes a built-in induction machine model.
However, modeling of the aerodynamics and mechanical drive train is more challenging.
These components are modeled based on the differential and algebraic equations that describe
their operation. The following sub-sections describe the modeling of the components listed
above.
EFFECT OF WIND SPEED:
The most fundamental measure of a wind turbine’s performance is given by its power
curve. The wind turbine model developed in the previous section is tested by running the
simulation at wind speeds from 1 to 20 m/s, with increments of 1 m/s between runs. As
expected, the power output peaks at rated wind speed and then falls due to stalling.
Construction of SCIG:
 Steady-State and Small-Signal Behavior
For power flow calculations, a wind plant can obviously be represented as a single
generating unit at the interconnection substation. Determining the equivalent “reactive
capability” of the plant, however, can be complicated since it will be a function of a large
number of elements within the plant – turbine reactive compensation, reactive losses in
collector lines, auxiliary compensation equipment such as collector line capacitor banks,
etc. While fairly standard and well-known for conventional generating units, this
characteristic has not been considered explicitly for many of the plants developed over
the past decade.
Net reactive power is also a function of voltage if shunt capacitors are present as part of
the plant reactive compensation scheme.
The dynamic nature of the wind resource can introduce a new dimension to power
system studies, especially where the transmission interconnection is weak. Reactive
power support for maintaining target voltages at the transmission interconnection will
vary with the real power injected. Temporal variation of wind plant aggregate power is
a very complicated function of a number of plant parameters and variables, but it also
can be a defining factor for the dynamic characteristics of the reactive compensation
system.
Additionally, the reactive compensation devices within the plant – turbines (shunt
capacitors or advanced control), collector line capacitor bank, and possibly interconnect
substation-based deviced – are dynamic devices themselves, with set points and delay
for toggling on or off of switched devices and continuous control for static var
capabilities.
Some of the factors that influence the variability of the aggregate production of a
wind
plant include
• Variations in wind speed at each turbine location in the plant;
• Topographical features that introduce turbulence and shear into the moving
air stream across the geographical expanse of the wind plant;
• The mechanical inertia of individual turbines, which influences how the wind
speed variations, turbulence, and wind shear affect the output of individual
turbines.
• The wind turbine control scheme, including the generator control and pitch
regulation systems that determine how the electric power at the terminals of
the turbine is influenced by fluctuating prime mover input;
• The number of turbines within the plant, since a larger number of turbines
implies a larger geographical area for plant, and more statistical diversity in
the local characteristics that contribute to output fluctuations;
• The grouping of turbines within the plant – if turbines are grouped into
“strings”, rather than more uniformly distributed over the area of the plant,
local fluctuations in wind speed will affect more than a single turbine at an
instant of time.
Wind generation is often characterized as “intermittent”, but, to better understand how
it can impact power system operations, it is useful to consider the output variability is
more detail.
On the shortest time scales, say tens of seconds to minutes, the output of a wind plant
can fluctuate because of varying wind speeds at the individual turbines comprising the
plant due to effects of terrain and turbulence in the moving air stream. This is more
likely the case in light to moderate winds, as modern wind turbines are capable of
holding the output power “flat” for wind speed at or above the rated value.
Measurement data shows that the fluctuations on this time scale as a fraction of the plant
rating decrease in magnitude as the number of turbines in the plant increases.
Over longer time periods – tens of minutes to hours – wind plant generation will again
exhibit fluctuation, and may also trend down or up as the larger scale meteorology
responsible for the wind changes. Passage of a weather front is an example. Experience
is showing that these trends can be predicted, but the accuracy of the prediction
degrades quickly with time. Forecasts for the next hour, for instance will be much better
than those for several hours ahead.
Longer-term forecasting for the next day or week is even less accurate, especially
when
timing is important. Predictions of a weather front passing an area tomorrow can be
relatively accurate, but the accuracy for predicting which hour it will pass will be much
lower.
“Intermittent”, as the term is applied to wind generation, encompasses both the
fluctuating characteristics along with the degree of uncertainty about when the resource
will actually produce. Both of these attributes are important for power system engineers
and operators who have come to understand well the fluctuations and uncertainties
inherent in conventional generating resources and system loads. Because wind
generation is new, these characteristics are only beginning to be quantified, and
procedure for dealing with them remained to be developed.
As of this writing, there are no practical analytical methods for characterizing the
output
fluctuations from a large wind plant. Direct measurements from operating wind plants
are providing some important insights into the complicated interaction of the factors
listed above. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) launched a program
in CY2000 to collect high-resolution electrical measurement data from operating wind
plants across the U.S.
Dynamic Response
The electrical and mechanical technologies which comprise commercial wind turbines
differ dramatically from the familiar synchronous generator and auxiliary systems that
are used to represent almost all conventional generating equipment. And, instead of a
small number of very large generating units, bulk wind plants can be made up of a very
large number of relatively small machines. Until quite recently, these attributes have
presented a difficult challenge to power system engineers engaged in evaluating
transmission system impacts of large wind generation facilities.
Evaluating the dynamic response of the electric power system during and immediately
following major disturbances such as faults is a critical engineering function for
ensuring system security and reliability. Now that wind plants make up a nonnegligible
fraction of the generation assets in some control areas, their contribution to
the system dynamic performance must be considered.
When subjected to a sudden and substantial change in terminal voltage or frequency,
both the mechanical and electrical elements of the turbine along with the associated
control systems influence its behavior. Consider the doubly-fed induction generator
with flux vector control of torque via the power converter on the rotor circuit. When a
fault on the transmission network causes the voltage at its terminals to sag to some
fraction of normal,
• The magnitude of the main flux in the machine begins to decay in response to
the reduced terminal voltage, and the position of the flux vector may
suddenly change if there is a phase shift associated with the fault voltage
• The rotor power converter control instantaneously adjusts the quadrature
axis rotor currents to “line up” with the new rotor flux vector.
• Since the rotor flux is not longer at the pre-fault value, the stator power of the
machine is reduced accordingly. In response, the power converter control
may try to increase the torque-producing component of rotor current.
• Because the electrical power output of the machine is now lower than the
pre-fault value, there is net accelerating torque on the mechanical system
which will increase the rotational speed of the machine.
• The increased rotational speed will cause the turbine blades to begin pitching
to reduce the mechanical torque input to the machine and reduce speed
When the fault is cleared and the terminal voltage returns to near normal, the
rotor power converter control will readjust the position of the rotor current
vector to again line up with the rotor flux vector
• Electric power output will jump back to (or slightly above, if the rotor current
had been increased by the controller during the fault) the pre-fault value.
Since mechanical power had been reduced by the pitch system, net
decelerating torque on the mechanical system will cause rotational speed to
decrease.
• The sudden changes in electromagnetic torque applied by the generator to
the rotating shaft (at fault inception and clearing) excite the main mechanical
resonance between the turbine blades and the generator inertia, such that
these masses are now oscillating out of phase around the average speed of
the rotating system.
• The oscillations in generator speed may be fed through the control system to
produce oscillations in electric power at the stator terminals of the machine.
While there are similarities to the response of a synchronous generator to the same
disturbance, the markedly different equipment and control comprising the wind turbine
lead to a difference dynamic response. While the sequence above is only an example for
one type of wind turbine, it is indicative of the behavior that needs to be represented in
dynamic simulations of the entire power system.
In addition, the response described is for a single turbine. What is important from the
perspective of the power system is the aggregate response of all the turbines in the wind
plant, along with the influence of any other dynamic elements such as static
compensation or switched elements.
Research is only beginning into electro-dynamic equivalents for wind plants. There is
agreement on a few general guidelines and principles for developing these dynamic
equivalents. For remote disturbances – those originating on the transmission network,
not within the wind plant itself – individual turbines can be considered coherent, i.e.
they response as if they were a large single machine of equivalent aggregate rating. This
assumption is based on all turbines being of identical type and parameters, and that they
“see” the disturbance at precisely the same instant and in roughly the same degree.
With some turbine technologies, there are nonlinearities in certain of the control blocks
such that the response may be dependent on the pre-fault conditions at the turbine,
namely the assumed generation level as a fraction of the rated value. If maximum
generation conditions are being studied, then all turbines at the same pre-fault
generation level is a good one. If for some reason partial generation conditions are of
interest, aggregate dynamic performance of the plant could depend on how the total
generation is allocated to individual turbines.
Because of the extensive medium voltage collector system that is part of many large
wind plants, there is potentially an issue with differing pre-fault terminal voltages at
Page 26
turbines dependent on generation level and electrical location within the plant. And, as
with the steady-state and small signal characterizations, the response of the plant in
terms of reactive power may also be difficult to capture, unless the behavior at the
interconnection bus bar is dominated by a single device such as a static var compensator
located at the substation.
Fortunately, most of these detailed questions are of likely of secondary importance,
especially where the focus is on the power system as a whole and not some particular
aspect of the wind plant response. Until new research findings indicate otherwise,
relatively simple dynamic equivalents consisting of a single or small number of
equivalent machines at the interconnection substations is the recommended approach.
4.3 Transient
Dynamic simulations and studies of the interconnected power system are based on a
number of assumptions that allow some simplifications in the representation of the
dynamic components of the system. For some investigations, such simplifications are
not valid or can obscure the aspects of the system model critical for the study.
Studies of sub-synchronous torsional interaction, control interactions, inadvertent
islanding, etc. may requires models with more detail than those used for system
dynamic studies. Full transient models of all but the simple wind turbine technologies
require information and engineering detail that can only be obtained from the wind
turbine manufacturer. Studies of these types should be conducted collaboratively with
technical personnel from the turbine designer.
4.4 Short Circuit Contributions
Little guidance exists for calculating short-circuit contributions from large wind
generation facilities. Analytical approaches are complicated for the following reasons:
• Commercial wind turbines employ induction machines for electromechanical
energy conversion, which do not strictly conform to the standard procedures
and assumptions used in calculaton of short-circuit contributions on the
transmission network.
• Generator control technologies employed in wind turbines– e.g. scalar or
vector control of rotor current in a wound-rotor induction machine - can
substantially modify the behavior of the induction machine in response to a
sudden drop in terminal voltage, further complicating calculation of terminal
currents during such conditions
• Windplants are composed of large numbers of relatively small generators,
interconnected by an extensive medium-voltage network that itself influence
fault contributions
The short-circuit behavior of a squirrel-cage induction generator is fairly well known,
and procedures are spelled out in the technical literature (such as the IEEE Brown Book)
for considering these machines in short-circuit studies. These recommendations,
however, apply most directly to fault studies within large industrial facilities, and may
require adaptation for transmission system fault studies.
In the remaining cases of the wound-rotor induction machines, the external components
and accompanying control have very significant influence on the machine under
network fault conditions, assuming that the control systems themselves are not
bypassed or rendered inoperative as a consequence of reduced terminal voltage at the
turbine. The following paragraphs are intended as a qualitative description of the
characteristics of the various wind turbine generator technologies under network fault
conditions.
Direct-Connect Squirrel Cage Induction Generator:
Induction generators are essentially induction motors that are driven at speed above
their nameplate synchronous speed by some prime mover. Magnetic excitation
necessary for torque production and power flow is drawn from the power supply
system. The electric current necessary for magnetizing the iron core is responsible for
much of the reactive power required by an induction machine.
When the source of excitation is removed from an induction machine, the main flux field
collapses and torque production or power flow is no longer possible. It does take a
finite amount of time for this field to collapse, however, during which time an induction
machine will contribute current to a short-circuit on the power system. Also, if voltage
is just reduced rather than removed completely as the result of a downstream fault, the
main flux will decay to some new value, but provide necessary excitation for the
machine to contribute to the fault. Contributions from induction motors are rarely
considered in utility fault studies, but can be an important consideration for protective
device coordination and rating within some industrial facilities. The IEEE Brown Book
(Standard 399-1997) “IEEE Recommended Practice for Industrial and Commercial Power
Systems Analysis” details procedures for calculating induction motor and generator
contributions to short-circuits within facilities.
Figure 12 illustrates the behavior of a wind turbine employing a line-connected
induction generator during a fault on the supply network. In the first cycle following
fault inception, stator currents quickly build up to a value several times the rated current
of the machine. The contribution during the first cycle can be estimated as the sum of: 1)
a sinsusoidal component approximately equal to the pre-fault terminal voltage divided
by the sum of the subtransient reactance of the generator and the reactance of the
equivalent network to the point of fault, and 2) a uni-directional (dc) component that
depends on the reactance to resistance (X/R) ratio of the equivalent system impedance
and the precise point on the terminal voltage wave where the fault is initiated. Both
components decay in magnitude as the fault persists. The dc component decays at a rate
governed by the X/R ratio. The decrease in the magnitude of the sinusoidal component
is due to the decay in the main flux of the machine.
After a few cycles, the dc component has vanished, and the sinusoidal component has
decreased in magnitude. It should be noted here that precise calculation of the shortcircuit
contribution requires a time-domain computer simulation with a relatively
detailed differential equation representation of the induction machine. The
aforementioned IEEE Brown Book acknowledges as much, and prescribes an
approximate method for defining two equivalent reactances for the induction machine –
one to be used for calculating the first cycle contribution, the other for a later time
during the fault that would be associated with breaker clearing or interrupting
requirements.
 UNIT-4
VARIABLE-SPEED WIND TURBINES
There are many similarities in major components construction of fixed-speed wind
turbines and wind turbines operating within a narrow variable-speed range. Fixed-speed wind
turbines operating within a narrow speed range usually use a double-fed induction generator
and have a converter connected to the rotor circuit. The rotational speed of the double-fed
induction generator equally 1000 or 1500 rpm, so a gearbox implementation is required.
To simplify the nacelle design a direct-driven generator is used. A direct-driven generator
using a large turbine blades diameter can operate at a very low speeds and does not need a
gearbox
installed to increase to speed. The usage of frequency converter is needed to use a direct-
driven generator, so wind t1urbines operating within a broad variable-speed range are
equipped with a frequency converter. In an conventional fixed-speed wind turbine, the
gearbox and the generator have to be mounted on a stiff bed plate and aligned precisely in
respect to each other. A direct driven generator can be integrated with the nacelle, so the
generator housing and support structure are also the main parts of the nacelle construction.
Nowadays, many wind turbines manufacturers are using variable speed wind turbine systems.
The electrical system for variable speed operation is a lot more complicated, in comparison to
fixed speed wind turbine system. The variable speed operation of a wind turbine can be
obtained
in many different ways with differentiation for a broad or a narrow wind speed range. The
main
difference between wide and narrow wind turbines speed range is the energy production and
the capability of noise reduction. A broad speed range gives larger power production and
causes reduction of the noise in comparison to a narrow speed range system. One of the
biggest advantages of variable speed systems controlled in a proper way is the reduction of
power fluctuations emanating from the tower shadow.
Narrow speed range wind turbines:
Several large manufacturers use a double-fed induction generator with a converter
connected to the rotor circuit for a narrow speed range electrical system . A schematic
diagram
of such a system is shown in Figure

The second option is the usage of a variable rotor resistance [32]. The Vestas V39-600 is an
example of a wind turbine in which the slip of the induction generator and thereby the speed
of the rotor can vary by 1-10%, using the Vestas Optislip system [33]. The system uses an
optically
controlled converter which varies the resistance of the rotor in the generator. On schematic
diagram in Figure 8 an electrical system of a wind turbine equipped with controllable rotor
resistance is shown.
Wide speed range wind turbines
In broad range variable speed systems the alternating current from the generator needs to
be rectified first and then inverted again into alternating current, before it is going to be fed
into the electrical system. Such systems are equipped with a frequency converter. The
electrical system of such a wind turbine must consist of three main parts – an synchronous
generator, a rectifier and an inverter. The generator and the rectifier have to be chosen as a
set, while the inverter can be chosen almost independently of the generator and rectifier
parameters. There is a design solution enabling to omit the usage of the gearbox in a broad
range variable speed turbine system. It is made by placing a large sized, direct driven multi
pole synchronous generator. The generator excitation can be made electrically or by
permanent magnets. If power quality is the aspect on which the manufacturer wants to focus
on, usually the inverter is the only suitable solution. Figure 9 shows a schematic diagram of a
variable speed wind turbine equipped with a converter, whereas the converter is meant as a
rectifier and an inverter.

The inverters which are best adopted to wind energy conversion systems are the line
commutated and forced commutated inverters. Both types require different types of filters,
because of their different operation principle, they produce harmonics of different orders. The
line commutated inverter exploits the thyristors. In order to operate they have to be connected
to the grid. Also the power factor of the line commutated inverter is variable, but does not
exceed 0.9. The inverter produces besides the fundamental current also the harmonic current,
which causes voltage harmonics in the grid. For example, an six pulse line commutated
inverter fabricates odd harmonics, not being multiples of 3. When the RMS value of the
fundamental current equals I(1) = 1 p.u., the RMS values of the current harmonics become
I(n) = 1/n pu., where “n” will be 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, ... [34, 35]. This inverter usage requires
implementation of an grid filter, eliminating these harmonics. On the positive side it can be
noted, that the grid filter produces reactive power, which increases the power factor of the
whole wind turbine generator system. The forced commutated inverter there is a possibility to
choose when to turn on and turn off the valves, thanks to the SCR technology. If the inverter
is connected to the grid, it can adjust its power factor to meet the desired requirement and
control the wind turbine system reactive power consumption
The usage of the Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) technique brings elimination of low
frequency harmonics and makes the first harmonic have the frequency close to the switching
frequency of the inverter. When the IGBT valves are employed, the switching frequency is in
range from 5 to 10 kHz. Because of the high switching frequency only a small filter will be
needed to filter out the harmonics..
Synchronous Generators
In wind energy application synchronous generators are used in variable speed systems only.
The converter to decouple the frequency between machine and grid has to be designed for
full load, different from the doubly-fed induction generator concept. Generators of larger
ratings are generally equipped with an excitation winding, fed via slip-rings from a separate
exciter. Machines with permanent magnet (PM) excitation have been the domaine of smaller
ratings, but are gaining their share for ratings also in the Megawatt class.
Synchronous machines are more suitable for designs with large pole numbers than induction
machines are. Hence they are the option for direct driven generators, sparing the gear box in
the system. Generators of considerable diameter and pole number values are found in the
gearless Magawatt systems.
The conventional synchronous generator can be used with a very cheap and efficient diode
rectifier. The synchronous generator is more complicated than the induction generator and
should therefore be somewhat more expensive. However, standard synchronous generators
are generally cheaper than standard induction generators. A fair comparison can not be made
since the standard induction generator is enclosed while the synchronous generator is open-
circuit ventilated. The low cost of the rectifier as well as the low rectifier losses make the
synchronous generator system probably the most economic one today. The drawback of this
generator and rectifier combination is that motor start of the turbine is not possible by means
of the main frequency converter.

Synchronous generator and diode-thyristor converter.

The generator system discussed in this report is a system consisting of a synchronous
generator, a diode rectifier, a dc filter and a thyristor inverter. The inverter may have a
harmonic filter on the network side if it is necessary to comply with utility demands. The
harmonic filter is, however, not included in the efficiency calculations in this report. Figure
1.6 shows the total powergenerating system.
The advantage of a synchronous generator is that it can be connected to a diode or thyristor
rectifier. The low losses and the low price of the rectifier make the total cost much lower than
that of the induction generator with a self-commutated rectifier [5]. When using a diode
rectifier the fundamental of the armature current has almost unity power factor. The induction
generator needs higher current rating because of the magnetization current. The disadvantage
is that it is not possible to use the main frequency converter for motor start of the turbine. If
the turbine cannot start by itself it is necessary to use auxiliary start equipment. If a very fast
torque control is important, then a generator with a self-commutated rectifier allows faster
torque response. A normal synchronous generator with a diode rectifier will possibly be able
to control the shaft torque up to about 10 Hz, which should be fast enough for most wind
turbine generator systems.
SELF COMMUTATED INVERTERS
Self commutated inverters are usually made either with Gate Turn Off thyristors, GTOs, or
transistors. The GTO inverters are not capable of higher switching frequencies than about 1
kHz. That is not enough for reducing the harmonics substantially below those of a thyristor
inverter with filter. Therefore, the GTO inverter is not considered as a choice for the future. It
has been made obsolete by the transistor inverters in the range up to 100-200 kW. Today the
most common transistor for this type of application is the insulated gate bipolar transistor,
IGBT. It is capable of handling large phase currents, about 400 A, and it is today used in
converters with an rated ac voltage up to 400 V. IGBT converters for 690 V networks are
supposed to be available soon. The drawback of the IGBT inverter today is that the largest
inverters that can be made without parallelling the IGBTs are only about 200 kW. A new
technology, like the IGBT inverter, is expensive until large series are manufactured. These
reasons make the IGBT inverters expensive to use for large wind turbine generator systems.
When the price of self-commutated
inverters decreases they are likely to be used for wind turbine generator systems because of
their lower harmonics.
A self commutated inverter can be either a voltage source inverter or a current source
inverter, see Figures 1.4 and 1.5. Today the voltage source inverter is the most usual type. If
it is used to feed power to the network it must have a constant voltage of the dc capacitor that
is higher than the peak voltage of the network. The generator is not capable of generating a
constant high voltage at low speed and a dc-dc step-up converter must therefore be used to
raise the voltage of the diode rectifier. In a system where the 12 generator is connected to a
self-commutated rectifier this is not a problem since that rectifier directly can produce a high
voltage.
The armature current of a synchronous generator with a diode rectifier can be instable. This
instability can, according to Hoeijmakers, be avoided by using a current-controlled thyristor
rectifier [3]. However, using a thyristor rectifier is much more expensive than using a diode
rectifier and it also makes it neccesary to use a larger generator. Therefore, a diode rectifier
should be used if the rectifier current can be controlled by other means. That is possible by
means of the inverter current control. The control may, however, be slightly slower than that
of a thyristor rectifier.
Enclosed generators (IP54) are preferred in wind turbine generator systems. But
standard synchronous generators are usually open (IP23) and cooled by ambient air ventilated
through the generator. Enclosed synchronous generators are manufactured, but they can be
rather expensive. Open generators can maybe be used if the windings are vacuum-
impregnated. Standard induction generators, with a rated power up to at least 400 kW, are
enclosed. A thyristor inverter is used in the system investigated in this report, mainly because
it is available as a standard product at a low price and also for high power. In the future, when
the size of the transistor inverters is increased and the price reduced, they will be an
interesting alternative to the thyristor inverter.
MODELLING
The complete generator system and its main components are shown in Figure 2.1. The
turbine is described by its power Pt and speed nt. The speed is raised to the generator speed
ng via a gear. Pg is the input power to the generator shaft. The generator can be magnetized
either directly by the field current If fed from slip rings or by the exciter current IE. The
exciter is an integrated brushless exciter with rotating rectifier. The output electrical power
from the generator armature is denoted by Pa. The generator armature current Ia and voltage
Ua are rectified by a three-phase diode rectifier.
The rectifier creates a dc voltage Udr and a dc current Idr. On the other side of the dc filter
the inverter controls the inverter dc voltage Udi and dc current Idi. Ud is the mean dc voltage
and Id is the mean dc current. The power of the dc link Pd is the mean value of the dc power,
equal to Id Ud. The inverter ac current is denoted Ii and the inverter ac voltage Ui. The ac
power from the
inverter is denoted Pi.
The filter is used to take care of the current harmonics by short circuiting the major part. The
output of the generator system is the network current Inet. The network voltage is denoted
Unet.
Drive Selection
The variable-speed operation can capture theoretically about one-third more energy
per year than the fixed-speed system. The actual improvement reported by the variable-speed
systems operators in the field is lower, around 20 to 35 percent. However, the improvement
of even 15 to 20 percent in the annual energy yield by variable-speed operation can make the
systems commercially viable in low wind region. This can open a whole new market for the
wind-power installations, and this is happening at present in many countries. Therefore the
newer installations are more likely to use the variable- speed systems. As of 1997, the
distribution of the system design is 35 percent one fixedspeed, 45 percent two fixed-speed
and 20 percent variable-speed power electronics systems The market share of the variable-
speed systems, however, is increasing every year.
INDUCTION GENERATOR
General equations in ABC/abc Reference Frame
In order to make a mathematical description of the double fed induction machine it will be
assumed that a uniform air gap machine can be modelled initially as two concentric
cylinders with an air gap of constant radial length /68/. The stator and rotor have wounded
three phase windings. Furthermore iron losses, and changing of parameters with temperature,
are not considered.
A balanced three-phase machine is expressed in Figure 11. The conceptual windings are
placed along the magnetic axes of the windings. The subscript ‘s’ indicates the stator
windings with effective number of turns Ns s and ‘r’ the rotor windings with effective
number of turns Nr r. The couplings between the phases are depending from the electrical
angle between the phases . If the three windings subscripted with ‘a, b, c’ are displaced
by 120 the angle is only dependent from the rotor displacement angle .
The basic equations for developing a three phase model can be found in various books
about electrical machines and drives /50/, /52/. The variables of the machine are defined in
vectors, where each element is represented per phase:
The equation for stator and rotor voltages can be written as:
Where the voltagesu , the currents i and Flux are vectors exemplified for stator values
defined by (3). A similar definition can be written for rotor values.

The flux in stator of the machine can be expressed with the flux created by the stator
phases itself and the flux part influencing the stator originated from the rotor phases. In the
same way the rotor flux can be separated into the flux belonging to the rotor and a part
penetrating the rotor windings originating from the stator phases.

The flux can be expressed as a product of an inductance matrix and the current vector The
flux created from the stator windings is expressed in equation (6).
The inductance matrix is expressing the coupling of the flux in the stator and rotor
windings. It takes a central position in the machine modelling. Depending on the form of
the inductance matrix, the machine model is more or less detailed. In progress of this
chapter, consideration of saturation effects will change the constant inductances in this
matrix to time dependent functions.
DOUBLY-FED INDUCTION GENERATOR
Nowadays wind turbines equipped with slip-ring induction generators and doubly-fed
control are widely used. Vestas introduced their first wind turbine with doubly-fed control,the
so called OptiSpeedTM control in 1999 for the wind turbine type V80 2MW. Wind turbines
with this control have the advantages of optimizing energy production, minimizing structural
loads, limiting noise emission and improvement of the power quality. New challenges gave
and give plenty possibilities for improvements in the control and design during this long time
usage of this wind turbine concept. Although the control aims have become more complex
the basic control from Vestas is built on the principles set forth in the German PhD thesis by
D. Arsudis /4/. In Figure 141 a simple sketch of the total VestascOptiSpeed wind turbine
control system is shown. Basically it can be separated into two parts. Firstly the Vestas
Converter System (VCS) control, consisting of power controller, rotor current controller and
the grid converter controller. The other part is the overall wind turbine control, consisting of
speed controller, full-, partial load controller, pitch controller and logic.
PMSG
 UNIT-5
STAND-ALONE SYSTEMS
 These plants can be distinguished into plants for single isolated loads and plants for
stand-alone grids. As regards isolated loads, which cannot be reached or for which
connection to the electrical public grid is not convenient due to the high costs or technical
difficulties and where the wind resource is sufficient (indicatively with an annual average
speed >6m/s), wind power energy may be a reliable and cost-effective choice to supply
household loads. Wind power plants for single loads shall be equipped with a storage system
ensuring power supply even under low wind conditions.
Independent grids fed by wind power energy represent a promising application.
Electric power supply to loads with high demands and far from the national distribution
network is usually carried out by generators supplied by fossil fuels, but it is an expensive
solution due to the high delivery and maintenance costs, in addition to the environmental
issue of pollution. The case of medium/ small islands is quite typical, considering also that
they certainly offer good wind power potentials.
The ideal solution would be to turn to hybrid systems by using wind power energy
(or other renewable sources) in addition to traditional sources, which result to be quite cost-
effective in case of connection to decentralized networks with power in the order of MW. A
diesel-wind power system generally consists of medium/ small-sized turbines combined with
a storage system and connected to a LV or MV grid; the diesel generator is used to guarantee
electric power supply continuity. The cost per kWh is higher than for plants with large-sized
turbines, but almost always lower if compared with power generation through diesel motors
only, since in this last case also the costs for the fuel supply are to be considered.

The transient performance of the stand-alone, self-excited induction generator, on the

other hand, is more involved. The generalized d-q axis model of the generator is required.
The computer simulation using the d-q axis model shows the following general transient
characteristics:
• under sudden loss of the self-excitation due to tripping-off the capacitor bank, the
resistive and inductive loads cause the terminal voltage quickly reach the steady state zero.
The capacitive load takes a longer time before the terminal voltage decays to zero.
• under sudden loading of the generator, the resistive and inductive loads result in
sudden voltage drop, while the capacitive load has little effect on the terminal voltage.
• Under sudden loss of resistive and inductive loads, the terminal voltage quickly rises
to its steady state value.
• At light load, the magnetizing reactance will change to its unsaturated value, which is
large. This makes the machine performance unstable, resulting in the terminal voltage to
collapse.
1. Small Systems in the kW Range
The market for wind energy systems (WES) with electric output in stand-alone
configurationis currently growing. Often a combination with other regenerative sources
such as photovoltaic systems (PVS) is intended. The range of ratings considered is
from below 1 kW up to around 20kW. Low investment cost is a criterion especially
in this area. Small turbines are normally equipped with fixed blades. Effort and cost
for maintenance should be low, in view of suitability for rural or less developed areas.
Safe operation properties is indispensable, considering operation by unskilled
persons in residential areas. Most stand-alone systems are for low-voltage ac output. They
are mostly equipped with an energy storage device, generally a lead-acid battery of suitable
capacity.
The design of small size wind systems should realize:
– low cut-in speed,
– simple speed control to run with best-point power coefficient up to rated power,
– passive azimuth adjustment,
– power limitation by a preferably passive acting mechanism.
Permanent magnet excited synchronous machines (PMSM) are the preferred generators,
due to their “grid-building” properties. More or less elaborated inverters are selected for
voltage and frequency adaption. Inverters may be adapted from photovoltaic systems.
Asynchronous generators are less often used for small stand-alone systems.
SYSTEMS WITH PMSM:
Low power wind energy systems of some 100Wup to some KVAR frequently used
to feed a buffer battery, with a dc or inverter ac output to consumers in an island
supply. In these systems called battery loaders the electrical power is generally generated
by a direct driven PMSM. The speed dependent generator voltage has to be
adapted to the battery voltage.

Figure shows an example of measured characteristics of a small battery

loader with a rotor diameter of 1,5m and a rated output power of 400W at
900 min−1. Note that loading starts at a speed of roughly 300 min−1. Compared
with Fig. 3.18 (passive load) the curves are shifted to begin at the cut-in speed, due
to friction and electrical loss.

To adapt the ac generator output to the dc battery side a load controller is needed
to obtain a satisfactory load characteristic. A simple solution is using a diode rectifier
and a step-down dc-dc inverter. Considering systems without pitch-control measures
have to be taken to limit the battery voltage in times of weak or no consumer
load and to limit the speed at wind velocities above rated value. Power limitation
may be effected by mechanical or electrical provisions. Options on the mechanical
side are decreasing the cross section of area A with respect to the wind direction by a furling
or tilting mechanism, or to provide or passive operated pitching of the blades. On the
electrical side a dump load resistor activated at a speed threshold is a possible solution.
Besides, with PMSM as generators electric braking is possible feature.

The principle of furling is illustrated in Fig., where (a) is for normal wind speeds (no
furling); (b) indicates starting of furling action and (c) is for the end position at high wind
speeds

For systems of ratings 1 kW and above, available market data allow a view on practical
values of turbine diameter and upper operational speed in dependence of power. Figure 5.25
covers the range up to 20kW; see also [BWE07]. Inverter circuits to couple generator and dc
(and battery) side may be selected from the types indicated in Fig. 5.26 where (a) stands for
the active front-end inverter, (b) shows a diode rectifier, (c) is the rectifier and step-up
inverter combination,
and (d) is a reduced version of (c) applicable for use with a generator of high
inductance [Wha05].
The features determining the cost is the semiconductor count and the complexity of control
equipment. It is seen that
(a) is the most advanced but costly solution; (b) will not meet requirements of a
VSI circuit with controlled dc side voltage; (c) has the advantage of using only
1 switch (transistor) and a simple control; (d) is only suitable with generators of
unconventional design. For systems rated some kW the rectifier and step-up inverter
combination (indicated by c)
Step up inverter
A simplified equivalent circuit is illustrated in Fig. 5.27, where the generator is represented
by the induced no-load voltage Uo, is proportional to speed, and an internal resistance. The
step-up converter is modelled by an ideal transformer with ratio 1/(1-d), an inductor in the
input branch and a capacitor in the output branch. The load side consists of a resistor and an
e.m.f. representing the constant battery voltage UB.
The performance of an example system for 4 kW at 350 min−1 is illustrated by calculated
curves in Fig. 5.28. Characteristics are shown for battery loading operation, under the
condition of continuous current. The duty ratio d is controlled to keep torque proportional to
speed, between 80 and 350 min−1. In the Figure part (a) shows the course of the generator
voltage vs. speed and input and output voltage of the step-up inverter; part (b) depicts input
and output currents, while (c) is the duty ratio; eventually (d) is the course of input power.
The concept of a stand-alone system in the kW-range is illustrated in Fig. 5.29.
The synchronous, three-phase PM excited generator 2 is driven by the wind turbine
1. A first d.c., variable voltage intermediate circuit is fed via the diode bridge rectifier
3. A step-up inverter (boost chopper) 5 supplies the second d.c. circuit containing
a storage battery 6. An active front-end inverter 7 feeds the single-phase local
grid 10. In practice a transformer 8 will be necessary to match battery and grid voltage;
9 is a passive filter for harmonics reduction, and 4 indicates a short-circuiting
device. Note similarities to the circuit in Fig. 5.15.
 Stand-alone system with synchronous generator and battery storage
SYSTEMS WITH INDUCTION GENERATOR:
The self-excited induction generator concept (SEIG) with capacitors as reactive
power source has often been recommended in literature. Simple solutions with constant
or switched capacitor banks are, however, not suitable for practical use due to
the load and speed dependence of the terminal voltage; see Fig. 3.12. An acceptable
solution would require appropriate voltage and reactive power control.
A simple possibility is to use a phase-controled inductance (see Fig. 3.10a) together
with a capacitor bank. A pilot set-up is shown in Fig. 5.30, where the output
voltage is controlled by means of a thyristor inverter, adjusting the phase angle α.
The passive LR-load is connected to the generator system by closing the switch S.
More sophisticated SEIG control concepts use active filters [chat06].
The supply of magnetizing current to a cage induction machine used as a generator
can be achieved by means of an active front end inverter, see 4.3.3.3. Figure 5.31
indicates a stand-alone system, where C1 is designed to provide a basic compensation
to take some of the inverter load, but not sufficient for creating self-excitation.
The scheme contains a buck-boost dc-dc inverter with an inductive storage element;
hence the polarity from left to right side is reversed. This solution with two intermediate
dc-circuits is suitable to cover a wide speed range, however at considerable cost and
increased losses. The grid-side inverter is a self-controled device, which allows controlling
the power factor. A single-phase output is assumed. Further shown is a passive filter to keep
harmonics off the output, and a transformer to adapt the voltage levels of battery and grid.
Note that the normal machine operation is supplying active power and consuming reactive
power, i.e. in the III. quadrant. For an induction machine used as generator in a stand-alone
system, two control
concepts may be used:
Stand-alone system with cage induction machine and battery storage

 Operation at constant flux. The induced voltage is roughly proportional to the speed,
and maximum generator power is obtained at rated current.
 Operation at maximum efficiency. This is the case when constant losses and load
Dependent losses are equal. In this mode the relation between voltage and speed is
non-linear. Note that standard induction machines are designed to have maximum
efficiency around 80% of rated load. Normally the constant flux concept is preferred,
because of larger energy output
D.c./d.c. Choppers
Typical d.c/d.c. converters are shown in Fig. 4.16 [Moh95]. The input voltage Ud is
transformed to the adjustable output value Uo, with either a step-down (buck) or step-up
(boost) ratio. A suitable semiconductor element such as a transistor, represented in the
circuits as a switch S, is periodically switched on and off, controlled by pulse-width
modulation (PWM). An inductance L serves as storage element. In normal service, with
continuous inductor current, the performance is such that in the buck converter the input
current is discontinuous, while in the boost converter
this applies to the (output) inductor current, dependent on conduction of switch and diode.
The performance of both converters is described under simplified conditions (losses
neglected) by Fig. 4.16. It is seen that the inductor is periodically loaded and unloaded, the
currents piecewise linear with time. To limit the current variation, a minimum inductance
value has to be applied which is inversely proportional to the switching frequency f = 1/T.
Characteristic values are as follows:

Figure 4.16 shows examples with continuous currents. Under different condition the current
may be discontinuous. Here the step-up converter is considered to discuss the limits between
operation modes [Moh95]. In Fig. 4.17a is shown the limiting case where the decreasing
inductor current iL is touching zero before it
Grid Connected SCIGs
SCIGs may be read as stator converter induction generators or cage rotor induction
generators. There are two basic schemes:
• With AC–AC cascaded pulse-width modulator (PWM) converter (Figure 5.1a)
• With direct AC–AC PWM converter (Figure 5.1b) [1,2]
The configurations with thyristor DC current link AC–AC converter and, respectively, with
thyristor cycloconverter seem to be merely of historical interest, as their reactive power
drainage and current harmonics content are no longer acceptable in terms of power quality
standards.
While the matrix converter is still in advanced laboratory status, the cascaded AC–AC PWM
converter is available off the shelf for powers up to 1 MW and more, with up to ±100%
reactive power capability. The so-called high-voltage direct current (HVDC) light technology
uses, in fact, IGBTs in multilevel AC–AC cascaded power converters [3], but for higher DC
link voltage levels (tens of kilovolts) for DC power transmission.
The vector or direct torque control of cascaded PWM converters was applied for variable
speed drives with fast and frequent regenerative braking. In essence, the control is similar to
that for the case of wound differs is the control and the state estimation for the machine-side
converter, as IGs have here a cage rotor.
The motor starting is inherent in the control. Speed, torque, or power control of the
machine-side converter may be adopted, depending on the prime-mover operation modes. For
a pump-storage small hydropower unit, motor starting and operation at variable speed are
required besides generating at variable speed; for a wind turbine unit, no motoring is, in
general, required. The grid-side converter is controlled for constant DC link voltage and
desired reactive power exchange.
Grid-Side Challenges