A Comparison Study between Two MPPT Control Methods for a Large Variable-Speed Wind Turbine under Different Wind Speed Characteristics

Dongran Song, Jian Yang, Mei Su, Anfeng Liu, Yao Liu and Young Hoon Joo
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Dongran Song: School of Information Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China
Jian Yang: School of Information Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China
Mei Su: School of Information Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China
Anfeng Liu: School of Information Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China
Yao Liu: Guangdong Power Grid Corp, Zhuhai Power Supply Bur, Zhuhai 519000, China
Young Hoon Joo: Department of Control and Robotics Engineering, Kunsan National University, Kunsan 573-701, Korea

Energies, 2017, vol. 10, issue 5, 1-18

Abstract: Variable speed wind turbines (VSWTs) usually adopt a maximum power point tracking (MPPT) method to optimize energy capture performance. Nevertheless, obtained performance offered by different MPPT methods may be affected by the impact of wind turbine (WT)’s inertia and wind speed characteristics and it needs to be clarified. In this paper, the tip speed ratio (TSR) and optimal torque (OT) methods are investigated in terms of their performance under different wind speed characteristics on a 1.5 MW wind turbine model. To this end, the TSR control method based on an effective wind speed estimator and the OT control method are firstly presented. Then, their performance is investigated and compared through simulation test results under different wind speeds using Bladed software. Comparison results show that the TSR control method can capture slightly more wind energy at the cost of high component loads than the other one under all wind conditions. Furthermore, it is found that both control methods present similar trends of power reduction that is relevant to mean wind speed and turbulence intensity. From the obtained results, we demonstrate that, to further improve MPPT capability of large VSWTs, other advanced control methods using wind speed prediction information need to be addressed.

Keywords: variable-speed wind turbines; maximum power-point tracking; optimal torque control; tip-speed ratio control; wind estimation; power reduction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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