SAgE Doctoral

Training Awards
[Improving Energy Conversion Efficiency of Wind Turbines
Using Advanced Modelling and Control Techniques]
[Energy, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering]
Supervisory Team

Shady Gadoue, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,

Newcastle University, UK
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/eee/staff/profile/shady.gadoue
Wenxian Yang, School of Marine Science and Technology,
Newcastle University, UK
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/marine/staff/profile/wenxian.yang
Khalid Abidi, Newcastle University, Singapore
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/eee/staff/profile/khalid.abidi
The Lead Supervisor is Early Career or newly hired Staff

Key Words

1. Wind Turbines, efficiency improvement, losses models,

advanced control, optimization techniques.

Overview
Wind power is gradually becoming a very significant
part of worldwide electrical generation. Planned and
existing large offshore wind farms are a particular
feature of Europes growing wind energy supply, with
significant engineering challenges for their assimilation
and operation within mature transmission networks.
Large wind farms in general need to contribute to the
stability and reliability of the transmission grid, if they
are to form a robust component of the generation
network. Doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG)
technology is dominant in the growing global market
for wind power generation due mainly to the use of a
cost-effective, partially-rated power converter. A
block diagram of a DFIG-based wind turbine energy
conversion system is shown in Fig. 1 [1].
Improving the efficiency of the wind turbine energy
conversion system has become a major requirement
in recent years. While a lot of research has taken
place in order to propose topologies that can
optimize the efficiency of machine drive systems, most
of it is based on off-line calculations of the system
losses to find the optimum control parameters [2, 3].
With the great recent advances in digital signal
processing, much recent attempts have been carried
out for real-time optimization techniques such as
search controllers and model-based controllers.

However, the complexity of optimization techniques

used has not been well considered in these studies.
Furthermore, only few control strategies suitable for
real time implementation have been investigated.

Power flow

Gear
Box

DoublyFed
Induction
Machine

Stator
connection

Network
Connection

Converter
connection

Rotor
connection

Power Electronic
Converter

Control System

Fig. 1 DFIG-Based wind turbine energy conversion

system
The main focus of this work is to compare several
optimization algorithms including both deterministic
and stochastic approaches which are suitable to solve
the problem of energy optimization for wind energy
systems. Furthermore, advanced control strategies to
produce the optimal control law at each operating
conditions will be investigated based on the use of
loss models of the machine and power converters.
Proposed schemes will be experimentally verified
using a small scale laboratory prototype test rig.

The supervision team of this project combines

expertise from different disciplines including electric
drives (Dr Gadoue), control engineering (Dr Abidi),
wind turbines and mechanical engineering (Dr Yang)
which makes it a multi-disciplinary project.

Methodology
The first stage of this project will mainly focus on indepth literature review of existing optimization and
control techniques used for energy optimization for
wind turbines energy conversion system. This will
include both off-line and on-line strategies. More focus
will be given to on-line methods for losses
minimization in the system. Different loss models
employed in the literature for this purpose will be also
comprehensively reviewed. The next step will be the
investigation of several optimization techniques and
advanced optimal control strategies to check their
suitability for real time implementation. Reduced
order models that will simplify the calculations of
losses for online implementation will be also studied.
After the completion of the analytical study
simulations will be carried out to verify the theoretical
concept. The last stage will be the experimental
testing of the proposed techniques to provide a
practical comparison with the existing control and
optimization methodologies.

Timeline
Year 1: Literature review and simulation of the
existing control techniques employed for energy
optimization in wind turbine systems.
Year 2: Investigating different loss models and deriving
reduced order models suitable for online
implementation. Simulation of proposed optimization
algorithms and control techniques and evaluate their
suitability for real time applications (i.e. complexity vs
energy efficiency gain).
Year 3: Experimental testing of the proposed
optimization and control strategies. Comparison of
energy gains obtained from proposed control schemes
at different operating conditions. Comparison of
computational complexity of proposed control

algorithms and testing their suitability for

implementation in existing wind energy systems.
Year 4: Thesis writing-up and preparation for oral
viva.

Training & Skills

The student will be based at the state of the art UG
lab of the Electrical Power research group at the
School of Electrical Engineering which includes world
class testing facilities. The student will be expected to
be trained to a high level to become an independent
researcher. He will develop his skills in both
simulation and experimental implementation of wind
turbine-based energy conversion systems. He will be
encouraged to present his work in conferences and
also to write Journal papers. He will be in direct
contact with the multi-disciplinary supervision team
which will develop his skills in different technical areas
related to wind energy systems.

References & Further Reading

[1] G. Pannell, Grid fault ride through for wind
turbine doubly-fed induction generators, PhD.
Thesis, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,
Newcastle University, 2008.
[2] D. Winterborne, Real-time model based loss
minimization control for electric vehicle drives, PhD.
Thesis, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,
Newcastle University, 2015.
[3] Abo-Khalil, A.G.; Hong-Geuk Park; Dong-Choon
Lee, "Loss Minimization Control for Doubly-Fed
Induction Generators in Variable Speed Wind
Turbines," in Industrial Electronics Society, 2007. IECON
2007. 33rd Annual Conference of the IEEE, pp.11091114, 5-8 Nov. 2007.

Further Information
Dr Shady Gadoue, Lecturer,
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,
Tel: +44 (0) 191 208 7896
Email: shady.gadoue@ncl.ac.uk