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Innovative Methods for the Control of Very Large Wind Turbines

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A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "A3: Wind, Wave and Tidal Energy".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (24 February 2023) | Viewed by 7770
Please submit your paper and select the Journal "Energies" and the Special Issue "Innovative Methods for the Control of Very Large Wind Turbines" via: https://susy.mdpi.com/user/manuscripts/upload?journal=energies. Please contact the journal editor Adele Min ([email protected]) before submitting.

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Special Issue Editor

Dr. Adrian Gambier

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy Systems IWES, 27572 Bremerhaven, Germany
Interests: control theory and applications; multi-objective optimal control; real-time control; real-time simulation; advanced mathematical methods for control purposes; dynamic modeling for practical control purposes; modeling and control of wind turbines

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The integration of renewable energy sources in power grids has an important priority around the world in strategic road maps for the generation of clean energy. In particular, wind energy systems are now central contributors to the renewable energy generation, and they also have a significant potential for the future. Thus, wind turbines are continuously growing, forcing a large increment in their sizes in order to satisfy the increasing demand.

On the other hand, very large wind energy systems (i.e., wind turbines with a capacity of more than 10 MW) are a very difficult challenge for the control community, particularly because well-established control methods are reaching their application limits, and hence adaptations, extensions, modifications of such methods, and even the development of completely new approaches are required. Thus, the main objective of this Special Issue is to present innovative control approaches, using which control engineers will be able to tackle the challenge of dominating such immense wind energy converters.

This subject is a very stimulating topic. It is hoped that this call will arouse the interest of many control engineering colleagues who are already working in the field, as well as others who are in search of new inspiring challenges. To this end, a copious number of submissions are encouraged.

Dr. Adrian Gambier
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

control of very large wind turbines
innovative control methods
real-time control
hardware-in-the-loop simulation
advanced mathematical algorithms
innovative modelling techniques for wind turbines
multi-objective optimization
adaptive control systems
new estimation methods for wind turbines
anti-windup methods for pitch control

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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18 pages, 6993 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Modelling the Wind Turbine by Using the Tip-Speed Ratio for Estimation and Control

by Adrian Gambier and Yul Yunazwin Nazaruddin

Energies 2022, 15(24), 9454; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15249454 - 13 Dec 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1515

Abstract

The development of dynamic models for control purposes is characterised by the challenge of finding a compromise between the minimum necessary information about the system dynamics contained in the model and a model with a low level of complexity such that the model-based control system design becomes comfortable. To achieve this balance, a modified dynamic model for the drivetrain of a wind turbine is proposed in this contribution. The main idea is to introduce the tip-speed ratio as a state variable so that an interval observer can be designed in such a way that its estimates can be used in the torque control during the partial load operation as well as for the estimation of the effective wind speed. During the runtime, the observer’s matrix gain is recalculated to adapt the behaviour to the current operational state, which changes all the time with the wind speed. Besides the theoretical formulation, a numerical example of a 20 MW reference wind turbine illustrates the utility of the method. The results show good control performance concerning the tip-speed ratio control loop and a satisfactory estimation of the effective wind speed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovative Methods for the Control of Very Large Wind Turbines)

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25 pages, 2664 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Wind Turbine Gust Load Alleviation with Active Flow Control

by Chang Liu, Abhineet Gupta and Mario A. Rotea

Energies 2022, 15(17), 6474; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15176474 - 5 Sep 2022

Viewed by 1972

Abstract

Large wind turbine rotors are becoming more common in utility-scale wind power, especially for offshore wind plants. However, the trend toward large rotors can be limited by their ability to manage dynamic and extreme loads. To provide a safety margin for the rotor design and avoid catastrophic events such as tower strikes, extreme loads need to be controlled. The objective of this study is to develop and evaluate a feedback control system to alleviate extreme loads and reduce blade deflections under gust events using active flow control devices. We also propose a modification in the turbine controller to achieve further reduction in extreme loads. The extreme load reductions are evaluated under gust wind conditions with direction changes according to the IEC standard. The effects of the gust alleviation controller on turbine performance and fatigue loads are investigated as well. With the deployment of the gust alleviation controller and modified turbine baseline controller, the extreme loads and deflections reduce by up to 23%. The energy captured by the turbine is not affected by the proposed gust alleviation controller. The fatigue loads of various wind turbine components are either reduced or remain unchanged. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovative Methods for the Control of Very Large Wind Turbines)

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Graphical abstract

16 pages, 2872 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Real-Time Flow Control of Blade Section Using a Hydraulic Transmission System Based on an H-Inf Controller with LMI Design

by Tingrui Liu, Kang Zhao, Changle Sun, Jiahao Jia and Guifang Liu

Energies 2020, 13(19), 5029; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13195029 - 24 Sep 2020

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1781

Abstract

Vibration and real-time flow control of the 2D blade section of wind turbines with three degrees of freedom (3-DOF), excited by external pitch motion, are investigated based on an H-inf (H_∞) controller using linear-matrix-inequality (HIC/LMI) design. The real-time flow control for the purpose of aeroelastic flutter suppression includes not only the driving process of real-time physical equipment, but also the realization of real-time control algorithm in the physical controller. The aeroelastic system combined with pitch motion is controlled by a kind of HIC/LMI algorithm. The real-time external pitch motion is driven by rack-piston cylinder (RPC) using a hydraulic transmission system (HTS). The unsteady aerodynamic loads model is simplified by the HTS system. The HTS is actuated by a proportional-flow valve (PFV) which is controlled by another HIC/LMI algorithm, a novel algorithm for waveform tracking. According to the result of waveform tracking, the input current signal of PFV is realized by the configuration of the controller hardware system and its external circuits. In two types of HIC/LMI algorithms, controller stabilities are affirmed using Lyapunov analyses, and controller values are derived and obtained by using LMI designs. Flutter suppression for divergent and instable displacements is shown, with obvious controlled effects illustrated. An online monitoring experimental platform using hardware-in-the-loop simulation, based on Siemens S7-200 programmable logic controller (PLC) hardware and Kingview detection system, is built to implement pitch motion based on HTS and configure the signal input of PFV in pitch control. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovative Methods for the Control of Very Large Wind Turbines)

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Review

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24 pages, 3754 KiB

Open AccessReview

Pitch Control of Three Bladed Large Wind Energy Converters—A Review

by Adrian Gambier

Energies 2021, 14(23), 8083; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14238083 - 2 Dec 2021

Cited by 15 | Viewed by 1755

Abstract

Modern multi-megawatt wind turbines are currently designed as pitch-regulated machines, i.e., machines that use the rotation of the blades (pitching) in order to adjust the aerodynamic torque, such that the power is maintained constantly throughout a wide range of wind speeds when they exceed the design value (rated wind speed). Thus, pitch control is essential for optimal performance. However, the pitching activity is not for free. It introduces vibrations to the tower and blades and generates fatigue loads. Hence, pitch control requires a compromise between wind turbine performance and safety. In the past two decades, many approaches have been proposed to achieve different objectives and to overcome the problems of a wind energy converter using pitch control. The present work summarizes control strategies for problem of wind turbines, which are solved by using different approaches of pitch control. The emphasis is placed on the bibliographic information, but the merits and demerits of the approaches are also included in the presentation of the topics. Finally, very large wind turbines have to simultaneously satisfy several control objectives. Thus, approaches like collective and individual pitch control, tower and blade damping control, and pitch actuator control must coexist in an integrated control system. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovative Methods for the Control of Very Large Wind Turbines)

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