Schaeffler Optimizes Wind Turbines Using Closed Loop

Do wind turbines have closed loop controllers?

The Design of Closed Loop Controllers for Wind Turbines This article reviews the design of algorithms for wind turbine pitch control and also forgenerator torque control in the case of variable speed turbines. Some recent and possiblefuture developments are discussed.

Why do we need a closed-loop wind farm control solution?

However, the uncertainties concerning inflow estimation and the high complexity in modeling the relevant wind farm dynamics require a closed-loop wind farm control solution. In closed-loop control, measurements of the controlled system are fed back to the controller to allow adaptation to a changing environment and model uncertainty.

What is a closed-loop model-based wind farm control framework?

Fig. 1. The closed-loop model-based wind farm control framework. A simplified surrogate model of the wind farm is used to represent the flow and turbine behavior at a low computational cost. The first step in the controller is model adaptation, implying the estimation of the inputs relevant for the current wind farm situation.

Do wind turbines have a pitch control algorithm?

This article reviews the design of algorithms for wind turbine pitch control and also forgenerator torque control in the case of variable speed turbines. Some recent and possiblefuture developments are discussed. Although pitch control is used primarily to limit powerin high winds, it also has a significant effect on various loads.

Can a closed-loop wind control solution be used in a high-fidelity simulation?

This closed-loop and model-based control solution was tested in a high-fidelity simulation subjected to a time-varying inflow, being the first of its kind in the literature. The wind direction and wind speed in the simulation contain strong changes to stress-test the controller.

Can a surrogate model be used to design a closed-loop wind farm controller?

The surrogate model of Section 3 is used to design a closed-loop wind farm controller. The wind farm studied in this article is a virtual offshore wind farm with six DTU 10 MW turbines spaced at 5 D × 3 D as shown in Fig. 6. The model adaptation algorithm is described in Section 4.1.