HTS Direct Drive Wind Generator

Clive Lewis, Jens Mller, June 2007

 Introduction

Why an HTS Wind Generator?

The Market Fast Growing Market for Wind Turbines Desire for large wind generating capacity in Northern Europe Trend towards larger turbine ratings High Volume cost sensitive market Many turbine manufacturers moving to direct drive generators to improve reliability The Technology HTS Generators offer the advantage of much lower mass than conventional generator New 2nd generation HTS wire technology offering the promise of low cost (cheaper than copper) in volume production
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HTS Wind Generator

June 2007

 The Wind Turbine Market

High growth rate, expected to continue well into the future

HTS Wind Generator

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 The Wind Turbine Market

Trend towards increasing individual turbine rating Largest turbines today 5 MW+ Move to offshore in Northern Europe, particularly UK Densely populated, limited land space Large area of shallow sea, with excellent wind climate UK Round 1 - 15 offshore sites (6 operating), 30 or 60 turbines at each site UK Round 2 15 sites with a capacity of up to 1200 MW per site, 7200 MW total. 1000 MW London Array site now given consent by UK government

HTS Wind Generator

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 Offshore Wind

Installation and connection costs significantly higher than onshore Fewer larger turbines desirable to reduce number of installations But: Increased nacelle mass increases installation costs Increases foundation costs Increases cost of lifting onto tower Reliability very important for offshore Cost of access high Unable to access turbine due to sea conditions for most of the winter generating season Maintenance visits need to be minimised Maximum 1 visit per year Preferably avoid DFIG generators with brush gear

HTS Wind Generator

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 Reliability

Desire among many turbine manufacturers to eliminate the gearbox Turbines fail due to a wide variety of causes Gearboxes responsible for the greatest percentage of outage time

Johan Ribrant and Lina Margareta Bertling, Survey of Failures in Wind Power Systems With Focus on Swedish Wind Power Plants During 19972005 IEEE Transactions on Energy Conversion, Vol. 22, No. 1, March 2007 Data for Sweden (above) and Finland (below, from J Ribrants Master thesis)
HTS Wind Generator

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 Evolution of Wind Turbine Technology

Early turbines were small 100 kW or less Used a fixed speed induction generator, driven through a speed increasing gearbox, directly connected to grid Power in high winds controlled by aerodynamic stall of the blades Trend to larger turbine over time. More than a few 100s kW advantage of variable speed became apparent Use of DFIG dominated Stator directly connected to grid. Rotor connected though converter supplying 30-50% of power Increasing penetration of wind power require better power quality supplied to grid Turbines with fully fed converters introduced Many turbine manufactures are moving to direct drive generators to improve reliability Low speed very high torque, hence physically large generators
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HTS Wind Generator

June 2007

 HTS Rotating Machines

Types of HTS Rotating Machine

HTS can be used in a number of different ways in rotating machines Bulk HTS material HTS Wire Different types of rotating machine using HTS have been proposed Synchronous Homopolar Induction Most large HTS projects have been synchronous machines with a HTS DC field winding on the rotor Largest manufactured and tested to date in 36.5 MW at 120 rpm (2900 kNm torque)
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HTS Wind Generator

June 2007

 HTS Technology in Wind Turbines

HTS allows significant increase in power density compared to wound copper or permanent magnet machines 20% of conventional synchronous 50% of state of the art direct drive PM generators It is an enabling technology for direct drive generator in very large turbines No gearbox No sliprings Reduced mass HTS offers efficiency advantages, especially at part load At full load efficiency is not so important At part load as much of the wind energy as possible should be extracted

HTS Wind Generator

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 HTS Technology in Wind Turbines

Prerequisites for a successful HTS wind generator

HTS wire manufactured in volume at low cost HTS wire manufacturing technology suitable for volume production Continuous process A generator design optimised for low cost highly automated volume production

HTS Wind Generator

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 HTS Wire Technology

First Generation HTS Wires

Commercially available for many years Based on BSCCO HTS materials Multiple filaments in a silver matrix Manufacturing involves multiple rolling processes followed by controlled heat treatment

Silver Matrix Ceramic Filaments

Second Generation HTS wires

Starting to become commercially available Based of YBCO HTS materials Coated on a buffer layer and substrate

HTS Wind Generator

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 Trithor 2G Wire Technology

2G Coated Conductor HTS Wire has the potential to meet the price and performance targets for wind energy Different processing routes evaluated Multiple process routes could satisfy the technical criteria Only an All Chemical route can meet the commercial viability target in large production volume Prototype continuous process installed at Trithor Biaxial textured metal tape Ni-W Alloy as substrate Lanthanium-Zirconate / Ceriumoxide (LZO/CeO) buffer YBCO Superconducting layer Low cost chemical deposition continuous process Throughput to increase from 0.01 up to 1000 m / hour With large enough demand 2G wire undercuts the price of copper
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HTS Wind Generator

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 Converteam HTS Wind Generator

Feasibility study carried out in 2004 based on the potential price performance of 2G HTS wire Larger project started in 2006 Design of 8 MW 12 rpm generator Part funded by UK DTI Partners on project (also receiving funding) A S Scientific (cryogenic systems) University of Warwick (materials and manufacturing expertise) HTS Coil manufacture by Trithor Project Structure Phase 1 Conceptual design of 8 MW, 12 rpm Generator Completed Phase 2 Detailed design of 8 MW Generator Design manufacture and test of a scaled prototype
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 Conceptual Design

Preliminary Study

HTS Wind Generator

High current density of HTS allows use of designs without iron or with partial iron magnetic circuit 1. Conventional stator with iron teeth rotor with magnetic pole bodies (warm or cold) Does not offer much size and mass advantage 2. Conventional stator rotor with non magnetic pole bodies more HTS wire needed, but lower cold mass otherwise similar to 1 3. Airgap stator winding rotor with magnetic pole bodies rotor iron can be operated highly saturated allows significant reduction in size and mass 4. Airgap stator winding rotor with non-magnetic pole bodies uses more HTS wire than 3 (depending on flux density) significant reduction in size and mass Type 4 chosen for the wind generator
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 Design Challenges

A number of challenges and risks identified at the start of the project Some potential show-stoppers

HTS Wind Generator

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 Torque Transmission

Transmit more than 6 MNm of torque (much more than this in a fault) from cold HTS coils at 35 K to a warm shaft at >300 K Avoid transferring more than a few Watts of heat to the cold parts Removing 100 W of heat at 30 K takes up to 10 kW of compressor power Various options explored including discs, tubes and spokes Solution using carbon fibre rods chosen A little over 20 W of heat leak to cold parts

HTS Wind Generator

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 Mechanical Forces

High torque machine , compact operating at high flux density >4 T in parts of HTS coils High Current density capability of HTS wire Force density in HTS coils due to Lorenz forces (J x B) very high Airgap winding torque acts on the coils rather than on iron But torque accounts for only 10% of the total force on the coils Excessive strain on HTS wire can lead to quench Forces due to differential thermal contraction also need to be managed Need to make efficient use of radial airgap space

HTS Wind Generator

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 Wind Turbulence
HTS Generator output
Power (kW), Torque
16000 14000 12000 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 600

Wind does not blow at constant speed Changes in load can cause eddy current heating on the rotor Also AC losses in the HTS wire Representative wind turbulence modelled Large turbine with blade pitch control 2D non-linear time stepping FE model for 10 minuets of wind data Mean loss low Rotor EM Shield effective

(kNm)

10000 8000 6000 4000 2000 0 0 100 200 300 s 400 500

Speed (RPM)

kW kNM RPM

Rotor Loss
1000 900 100 90

700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 0 100 200 300 s 400 500

70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 600

Cold support structure loss (W)

Warm E.M. Shield loss (W)

800

80

Shield loss Support loss

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 Airgap Stator Winding

The challenges Forces act on stator conductors rather than iron teeth The forces are high cycle fatigue loads Stator coils need to be made from stranded litz wire to eliminate eddy current loss naturally flexible Forces need to be transmitted to the back iron / frame via nonmagnetic, non-conducting supports Compact design could need expensive liquid cooling Solutions Forces can be managed Full fatigue analysis to be carried out during next phase Stiff structure can be obtained using from wound coils, composite supports and global VPI Stator can be air cooled
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HTS Wind Generator

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 Airgap Stator Winding

Stator mechanical model during 3 Phase Short Circuit
Time and space varying coil forces from EM Model Radial and Tangential forces calculated Resulting deflections in the stator winding and support structure

Total Tangential Force in Slot

50,000

-50,000

slot 1 -100,000 N/m slot 2 slot 8 slot 13 -150,000 slot 14 slot 18

-200,000

-250,000

-300,000 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 s 0.4 0.5 0.6

HTS Wind Generator

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 Stator Iron Losses

Airgap winding gives significant axial component of flux at the ends Can cause radial and tangential eddy current losses in the stator core High operating flux density increases the problem Low operating frequency helps Original baseline design had 55 kW losses unacceptable Two solutions found with losses reduced to 6 kW Selected solution had slightly higher mass, but lower risk and easier manufacturing

Eddy currents in the stator core for 1 possible design (not selected)

HTS Wind Generator

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 Conclusions

Conceptual design phase completed Solutions found for all the major technical challenges Low cost 2G HTS wire will enable very large direct drive generators to be economically attractive solution compared to conventional technology for very large turbines Project is progressing through the next phase Design and manufacture of a scaled prototype Detailed design of the full sized machine Manufacture of full sized prototype planned to start in 2009

HTS Wind Generator

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Thank you for your attention

www.converteam.com

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