WIND TURBINE SYSTEM

Introduction:
Wind Energy is clean and renewable; hence many countries have installed wind
turbines generation system in the past few decades. The global installed capacity
until year 2014 is 369,597MW [1] ; which shows 16% rise as compare to year 2013.
The Electric energy obtained from wind turbines is not a constant due to change in
wind speed. The power and losses in the wind turbine are also proportional to the
variation in the wind speed. Considering the fact that wind flow and speed all over
the world are different, thus the wind turbine generation system should be suitable
for such variable wind patterns such as harness as much energy as possible.
Before moving ahead, lets understand the available power from the wind.
The power generated from the wind can be represented by
where

air

is air density,

Cp

1
3
P= air C p Ar V w ,
2

is the power coefficient or aerodynamic efficiency,

which is a function of the tip-speed ratio and the pitch angel of turbine blades,
is effective area over which power is generated,

Vw

Ar

is wind speed[5].

It can be observed that power generated is proportional to the wind speed. The
power curve in Fig-1 shows the power output as the function of wind speed. The
graph can be subdivided into three regions as follows [2].
1. Cut in wind speed: the wind speed at which the wind turbine will start
generating power typical cut-in wind speeds are 3 to 5 m/s.
2. Nominal wind speed: The lowest speed at which the wind turbine reaches its
nominal power output. Above this speed, higher power outputs are possible,
but the rotor is controlled to maintain a constant power to limit loads and
stresses on the blades.
3. Cut-out wind speed: The highest wind speed at which the turbine will operate
at. Above this speed, the turbine is stopped to prevent damage to the blades.

Page 1 of 4

Fig-1: Power Curve

Wind turbines consist of various component but lets us get the over view of the
some of other i.e. gearbox, electronic power convertors and generator system and
their influence on the power generation.
Gear Box:
A Gear box in wind turbine is typically used to increase the rotational speed i.e. from
low speed of the wind blades to high speed of electrical generators. For 1500RPM
speed of electrical generator a 90:1 ratio gearbox is used which have input of 17.1
RPM[3]. As the gear box ratio is increased the generation speed is increased hence,
the size of the generator can be reduced. But as the size of the gear box is
increased, losses associated with it also increases i.e. gear tooth losses, bearing
losses, seal losses and lubricant losses.
Electronic power convertors:
Power electronic convertors are integral part of the wind turbines because they are
used in all types of wind turbines. They are present in constant speed turbines
between generators and grid; and in variable speed turbines between grid and
generators as well as for varying the speed of the generators [6].
In recent years as the popularity of variable speed wind turbines have increased,
the importance of electronic power convertors in wind turbines have also increased.
Generators system:
Broadly wind turbines can be distinguished into two type i.e. Variable speed and
constant speed based on the generators used.
Constant speed wind turbine with squirrel cage induction generator
This system is also known as Danish concept, which uses three stage gear box and
a standard squirrel cage induction generator. When the wind speed increases above
Page 2 of 4

the rated speed, the power generated still remains constant. In this case stall
principle is used to limit the power generation [5].
The generator used in this can also have two stator windings with different number
of pole pair so that generator can operate at two different speeds. This is done so
that power produced can be increased by the generator.
Doubly fed induction generator [DFIG]:
These types of wind turbine consist of a multistage gearbox, a cost effective doubly
fed induction generator and a power electronic convertor for feeding the rotor
winding [hank]. As the DFIG are capable of operating at variable speed, this property
helps in capturing energy at non rated speed i.e. between 60% and 110% of the
rated speed[5].
Brushless Generator with gear and full convertor (GFC)
Various manufacturers have developed a variable speed wind turbine with gearbox,
a brushless generator and convertor. This system may be used to obtain better grid
fault ride through characteristics as compare to DFIG [5].
Direct drive generator:
Due to failure in gearbox and to lower the maintenance issues, manufacturers have
been using gearless generator system with direct drive generators. Due to low
speed operations these generators have large no of poles, this makes generators
large, heavy and expensive[5].
A study performed by Hui Li and Zhe Chen on wind generator systems namely
permanent magnet synchronous generators with the direct-driven (PMSG_DD), the
single-stage gearbox (PMSG_1G) and three-stage gearbox (PMSG_3G) concepts,
doubly fed induction generators with the three-stage gearbox (DFIG_3G) and with
the single-stage gearbox (DFIG_1G), the electricity excited synchronous generator
with the direct-driven (EESG_DD), and the VSCF squirrel cage induction generator
with the three-stage gearbox (SCIG_3G) shows that direct drive system are cost
effective choice as it has low generation cost and high annual energy production
(AEP) per cost. Single stage drive concept is also attractive as it also has low
generation system cost and higher AEP per cost. But the three stage gearbox drive
with DFIG system seems to be most attractive choice among other generator
systems because it has lowest generator system cost and highest AEP per cost [4].
Conclusion:
Major wind farm locations in world have mean annual wind speed in the range of 68m/s at 10m height [4]. It can also been seen from the fig-1 power curve the power
generation between 5-10m/s is also linear. It can also be seen from the study of Hui
& Zhe Chen that high stage gearbox along with variable speed generators perform
Page 3 of 4

better as compare with other configuration of gearbox and generators. Hence for
further improvement of wind turbine generation system it is very important to
perform more extensive study on control of variable speed gearbox and variable
speed generators based on wind speed so that maximum power can be harnessed
from wind.

Reference:
1. http://www.gwec.net/global-figures/graphs/
2. http://people.bu.edu/dew11/turbineperformance.html
3. http://www.windpowerengineering.com/design/mechanical/gearboxes/gearsgearboxes-101/
4. Hui Li; Zhe Chen, "Design optimization and evaluation of different wind
generator systems," in
Electrical Machines and Systems, 2008. ICEMS 2008. International Conference
on
,
vol.,
no.,
pp.2396-2401,
17-20
Oct.
2008
URL:http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?
tp=&arnumber=4771150&isnumber=4770630
5. Polinder, H., "Overview of and trends in wind turbine generator systems," in
Power and Energy Society General Meeting, 2011 IEEE , vol., no., pp.1-8, 2429 July 2011
doi: 10.1109/PES.2011.6039342
6. Blaabjerg, F.; Liserre, M.; Ma, K., "Power electronics converters for wind
turbine systems," in Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE),
2011
IEEE
,
vol.,
no.,
pp.281-290,
17-22
Sept.
2011
doi:
10.1109/ECCE.2011.6063781

Page 4 of 4