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

Generator Torque, Nm

20000
15000
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

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Windspeed (m/s)
Weibull Probability

Weibull Betz
19/60

Gearbox efficiency

100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

810
1215
1665

RPM

0%

2565
15%

30%

45%

60%

75%

2115
90%

Efficiency

Variable Speed Gearbox Efficiency Surface

% of Rated Power
20/60

Generator efficiency
Permanent-magnet generator efficiency surface

100%

95%

85%

80%

75%

150%
125%

5%

0%
0%

10%

20%

15%

30%

% of rated RPM

25%
25%

35%

45%

50%
40%

% of rated power

50%

60%

55%

70%

75%
65%

80%

75%

90%

100%
85%

100%

70%
95%

Efficiency

90%

21/60

Power converter efficiency

Variable Speed Converter Efficiency
120%

100%

Standard Converter
90% Converter
94% Converter

Efficiency

80%

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

Megawatts

35000
30000
25000

Load
Wind

20000
15000
10000
5000
0
0

12

18

24

Hour of the day

24/60

What to do about it
Ignore it
Wind produces 10%-20% of
our electricity

Geographical distribution
Add dispatchable load
Add storage

CAES
Batteries
Hydrogen
V2G

The problem is cost!!!

CAES
Current technology
Combined with natural
gas electrical plants
50% to 70% efficiency

Batteries
Currently expensive
Efficient (85% to 95%)

Hydrogen
Massive
Inefficient (25% to 35%)

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
Penetration
20%

$0.038
Cost of Energy

$0.036
$0.034
$0.032
$0.030
$0.028

Energy
Penetration
2%

$0.026
$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

Hydrogen Cost ($/kg)

$3.25
$3.00
$2.75
PTC
$0.00
0

$2.50
$2.25

PTC
$0.02
0

$2.00
$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 variablespeed
Controls testing
36/60

CART Capabilities
Turbine heavily
modified for controls
testing
High-speed independent
pitch control
Constant-speed mode
Full variable-speed
Flexible controller (PCbased)
Fast data acquisition
(100 Hz, 90 channels)

Instrumentation
Performance
HSS, LSS torque
Power, current, voltage

Loads

Blade root loads

Tower bending
Accelerations
Rate-gyros

Meteorological
Up-wind vertical array
Sonic anemometer
37/60

Turbine characterization
0.60
0.50

Cp

0.40
0.30
0.20
0.10
0.00
0

10

15

20

TSR
Constant Speed - LSS

Predicted
38/60

2.0

600

1.5
1.0
0.5
0

Standard Control
Adaptive Control

500

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

0.5
0.4

Grid Power (kW)

Fractional Average Power

Normalized M (M/M )

Adaptive controller

400
300
200
100
Region 2 Region 3

0.3
0

50

100

150
200
250
Time (hours)

300

350

10
15
Mean Equivalent Wind Speed (m/s)

20

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
Low-Speed Shaft
Torque

200
180
160
140
120

PI Control
State-space (FAST) controller

100
80
60
0

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
energy capture

Boeing 747-200

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
Controller
(Simulation)
Simulation)

SymDyn StateState-Space
Controller
(Simulation)
Simulation)

Baseline PI
Controller
(Field Test)
Test)

SymDyn StateState-Space
Controller
(Field Test)
Test)

RMS speed error [RPM]

.389

.380

.233

.213

Max. pitch rate [deg/s]

14.9

15.5

13.7

9.4

28.8

16.0
(-44%)

Performance Measure

RMS pitch current [A]

2266

1586
(-30%)

578

272
(-53%)

LowLow-speed shaft torque

fatigue DEL [kNm
[kNm]]

42

25
(-40%)

15.8

7.7
(-51%)

BladeBlade-root flap fatigue

DEL [kNm
[kNm]]

385

306
(-21%)

126

86
(-32%)

Tower forefore-aft fatigue

DEL [kNm
[kNm]]

42/60

Questions and comments

43/60