An introduction to wind-turbine

electrical systems
Lee Jay Fingersh
Given at CU Boulder
April 18, 2008
 What does a wind-turbine
electrical system do?

Produces our product

Controls the rotor
Interacts with the power grid
Protects itself from harm
Protects the turbine from harm

2/60
Wind turbine operation

3/60
Classical wind turbine design

4/60
Alternative train designs

5/60
 Rotating Magnetic Fields

RotatingField.html

6/60
Induction generator torque-speed
characteristic
25000
20000
15000
Generator Torque, Nm

10000
5000
0
-5000
-10000
-15000
-20000
-25000
0 300 600 900 1200 1500 1800 2100 2400 2700 3000 3300 3600

HSS speed, RPM

7/60
 Synchronous machines

Very stiff little damping

Can produce rather than
absorb reactive power
Hard to get online
Requires a cushion
between it an the rotor
Fluid couplings can be
dangerous

8/60
Fluid coupling failure

9/60
Torque response constant speed

10/60
Torque response variable speed

11/60
Torque speed vector for VS

12/60
 What is a power converter?

Converts
variable-frequency
variable-voltage
into
constant-frequency
constant-voltage

13/60
Passive rectification

14/60
12-pulse

15/60
Full-processing

16/60
Current link

17/60
Doubly-fed

18/60
 Weibull Probability function
Wind, Energy

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Windspeed (m/s)

Weibull Probability Weibull Betz

19/60
 Gearbox efficiency
Variable Speed Gearbox Efficiency Surface

100%
90%
80%
70%
Efficiency

60%
50% 810
40% 1215
30%
20% 1665
RPM
10% 2115
0%
2565
90%
75%
60%
45%
30%
15%
0%

% of Rated Power

20/60
 Generator efficiency
Permanent-magnet generator efficiency surface

100%

95%

90%
Efficiency

85%

80%

75%
150%

125%
70%
100%
100%
95%
90%
85%
80%

75%
75%
70%
65%

% of rated RPM
60%

50%
55%

50%

45%

40%

35%

25%
30%

% of rated power
25%

20%

15%

0%
10%

5%

0%

21/60
 Power converter efficiency
Variable Speed Converter Efficiency

120%

100%

Standard Converter
90% Converter
80%
94% Converter
Efficiency

60%

40%

20%

0%
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 120%
Percent of Rated Load

22/60
 Interaction with the grid

Requirements are
getting tougher
Must provide VAR
compensation
Must ride-through faults
Must provide fault
current
Still no dispatchability

23/60
 The dispatchability issue
Load versus wind

45000
40000
35000
30000
Megawatts

25000 Load
20000 Wind

15000
10000
5000
0
0 6 12 18 24
Hour of the day

24/60
 What to do about it
Ignore it CAES
Wind produces 10%-20% of Current technology
our electricity Combined with natural
gas electrical plants
Geographical distribution 50% to 70% efficiency
Add dispatchable load Batteries
Add storage Currently expensive
CAES Efficient (85% to 95%)
Batteries Hydrogen
Hydrogen Massive
V2G Inefficient (25% to 35%)

The problem is cost!!! V2G
Emerging

25/60
 Approach
Simulation of power grid energy-flow
Analysis of time-series data for 2002
California ISO hourly load data
Lake Benton wind farm hourly power data
Components
Wind Current costs ($1,000 / kW)
Battery Projected costs
Electrolyzer Projected costs
Fuel Cell Projected costs
Dispatchable load/curtailment
Traditional generation
26/60
 Interesting result
An optimizer (Excel solver) is used to minimize
cost by optimizing the sizes of the components
Electrolyzer
Fuel cell
Control parameters

Hydrogen system is optimized to zero size!
 Cause is the low efficiency of the hydrogen system
compared to the battery
Hydrogen system 37.5% (75% electrolyzer, 50% fuel cell)
Battery 85.5% (95% charge, 90% discharge)
 True even when costs of hydrogen components
(electrolyzer and fuel cell) are set to zero!
27/60
 Optimized wind-battery system
$0.040
Energy
$0.038 Penetration
20%
$0.036
Cost of Energy

$0.034

$0.032

$0.030

$0.028
Energy
$0.026 Penetration
2%
$0.024
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
Capacity Reduction
28/60
 What about making hydrogen?
Fix the electrolyzer size so the optimizer
doesnt optimize it away
Dont use the hydrogen to regenerate
electricity on-site
Sell the hydrogen created as a fuel
Assume no hydrogen storage needed

Result: Hydrogen production is less
expensive when electrolyzers are
combined with wind AND batteries
29/60
 Hydrogen production results
$3.50

$3.25
Hydrogen Cost ($/kg)

$3.00

$2.75
PTC
$2.50
$0.00
0 PTC
$2.25 $0.02
$2.00 0

$1.75

$1.50
$0 $200 $400 $600 $800 $1,000 $1,200
Electrolyzer cost ($/kW)
30/60
 Conclusions

Hydrogen is not economical as an energy

storage medium for grid electricity

Batteries are economically competitive for
on-grid electricity storage

Hydrogen can be produced from wind for
$1.50 to $3.00 per kg in a hybrid system
(wind-battery-electrolyzer-grid)

31/60
Wind turbine controls

32/60
 The controls-design process

Field Test
Simulate

Design

Modify Analyze

33/60
 Controls on wind turbines

To test controls on
wind turbines, we
needed a controls
test bed turbine
Two Westinghouse
600kW 43.28 meter
two-bladed wind
turbines were
acquired from
Kahuku point, Oahu
34/60
 Turbine shipment/installation

The turbines were

brought to the
NWTC, refurbished
and installed
Instrumentation and
data acquisition
equipment were
added

35/60
 Turbine operation

Both turbines were

placed into
operation
ART (left) 1999
Constant-speed
LIST experiment
CART (right) 2001
Constant or variable-
speed
Controls testing
36/60
 CART Capabilities

Turbine heavily Instrumentation

modified for controls Performance
testing HSS, LSS torque
High-speed independent Power, current, voltage
pitch control
Loads
Constant-speed mode
Blade root loads
Full variable-speed
Tower bending
Flexible controller (PC-
Accelerations
based)
Rate-gyros
Fast data acquisition
(100 Hz, 90 channels) Meteorological
Up-wind vertical array
Sonic anemometer

37/60
 Turbine characterization
0.60

0.50

0.40
Cp

0.30

0.20

0.10

0.00
0 5 10 15 20
TSR
Constant Speed - LSS Predicted
38/60
 Adaptive controller

2.0 600
Normalized M (M/M )
+

Standard Control
1.5 Adaptive Control
500

1.0

Grid Power (kW)

400
0.5
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
300
Fractional Average Power

0.5 200

0.4
100
0.3 Region 2 Region 3
0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 5 10 15 20
Time (hours) Mean Equivalent Wind Speed (m/s)

39/60
 State-space control
State-space control allows the designer great flexibility
Multiple inputs (RPM, blade bending, nacelle acceleration, etc.)
Multiple outputs (shaft torque, individual blade pitch)
Ability to dramatically reduce turbine vibrations

Measured Shaft Torque

200
180
Low-Speed Shaft

160
Torque

140
120
100 PI Control
80 State-space (FAST) controller

60
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Time (sec)
40/60
 Why do we need to reduce
vibrations?
Turbines are getting much
larger in response to the need
to meet LWST goals
Increased economies of scale
Stretched rotors for more Boeing 747-200
energy capture
Physics dictates that a larger
machine made out of the same
materials will be more flexible
More flexibility =
More vibrations =
More loads =
More cost

Controls may be the most
important solution to reducing
cost

41/60
 Preliminary State-space results
Baseline PI SymDyn State-
State-Space Baseline PI SymDyn State-
State-Space
Performance Measure Controller Controller Controller Controller
(Simulation)
Simulation) (Simulation)
Simulation) (Field Test)
Test) (Field Test)
Test)
RMS speed error [RPM] .389 .380 .233 .213

Max. pitch rate [deg/s] 14.9 15.5 13.7 9.4

16.0
RMS pitch current [A] 28.8
(-44%)
Tower fore-
fore-aft fatigue 1586 272
2266 578
DEL [kNm
[kNm]] (-30%) (-53%)
Low-
Low-speed shaft torque 25 7.7
42 15.8
fatigue DEL [kNm
[kNm]] (-40%) (-51%)
Blade-
Blade-root flap fatigue 306 86
385 126
DEL [kNm
[kNm]] (-21%) (-32%)

42/60
Questions and comments

43/60