An isolated small wind turbine emulator

Arifujjaman, Md. (2006) An isolated small wind turbine emulator. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

Furling control method is the most commonly used control method by small wind turbine industry to control the aerodynamic power extraction from the wind. In this thesis, a small wind turbine with furling mechanism and its resulting dynamics are modeled on Matlab/Simulink platform. The model is simulated to regulate the speed of the wind turbine via a load control method. Tip-speed ratio and hill climbing control methods for the maximum power extraction are investigated. The wind speed data and Rayleigh distribution of St. John's, Newfoundland, is used to determine the annual energy capture. Satisfactory simulation performance leads to the implementation of an isolated small wind turbine emulator based on a separately excited DC motor to emulate and evaluate the performance of a small wind turbine using different control strategies. The test rig consists of a 3HP separately excited DC motor coupled to a synchronous generator. Wind turbine rotor and furling dynamics are incorporated in the emulator with the use of a PC based wind turbine model. A dump load is connected to the generator through a buck-boost converter controlled by a microcontroller. Emulation of the wind turbine is confirmed by running the DC motor to track the theoretical rotational speed of the wind turbine rotor. A dynamic maximum power controller is implemented and tested. The controller uses the wind speed and rotor speed information to control the duty cycle of the buck-boost converter in order to operate the wind turbine at the optimum tip-speed ratio. Test results indicate that the proposed system accurately emulates the behavior of a small wind turbine system.

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