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

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Wind turbine operation

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Classical wind turbine design

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Alternative train designs

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 Rotating Magnetic Fields

RotatingField.html

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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

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 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

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Fluid coupling failure

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Torque response – constant speed

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Torque response – variable speed

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Torque speed vector for VS

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 What is a power converter?

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

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Passive rectification

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12-pulse

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Full-processing

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Current link

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Doubly-fed

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 Weibull Probability function
Wind, Energy

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

Weibull Probability Weibull Betz

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 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

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 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%

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 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

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 Interaction with the grid

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

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 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

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 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

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 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
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 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!
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 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
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 What about making hydrogen?
• Fix the electrolyzer size so the optimizer
doesn’t optimize it away
• Don’t 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
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 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)
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 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)

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Wind turbine controls

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 The controls-design process

Field Test
Simulate

Design

Modify Analyze

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 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
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 Turbine shipment/installation

• The turbines were

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

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 Turbine operation

• Both turbines were

placed into
operation
• ART (left) – 1999
– Constant-speed
– LIST experiment
• CART (right) – 2001
– Constant or variable-
speed
– Controls testing
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 CART Capabilities
• Turbine heavily • Instrumentation
modified for controls
testing
– High-speed independent
pitch control
– Constant-speed mode
– Full variable-speed
– Flexible controller (PC-
based)
– Fast data acquisition
(100 Hz, 90 channels)
– Performance
• HSS, LSS torque
• Power, current, voltage
– Loads
• Blade root loads
• Tower bending
• Accelerations
• Rate-gyros
– Meteorological
• Up-wind vertical array
• Sonic anemometer
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 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
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 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)

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 “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)
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 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

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 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%)

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Questions and comments

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