Wind Generation

07 August 2023 23:45

• Wind turbines can be classified in terms of the axis of blades rotation.

• Almost all large machines are horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWTs), but there are some
smaller turbines with blades that spin around a vertical axis (vertical axis wind turbines
(VAWTs)).

• While virtually all large wind turbines are of the horizontal axis type, there was a period of
time when some HAWTs were upwind machines and some were downwind types.

• A downwind machine has the advantage of letting the wind itself control the yaw (the left–
right motion) so it naturally orients itself correctly with respect to wind direction.

• They do have a problem, however, with wind shadowing effects of the tower. Every time a
blade swings behind the tower it encounters a brief period of reduced wind, which causes
the blade to flex.

• Upwind turbines on the other hand require somewhat complex yaw control systems to
keep the blades facing into the wind.

• A fundamental design decision for HAWTs relates to the number of rotating blades.

• The most familiar wind turbine for most people is the multibladed, water-pumping windmill so often seen on old
farms.

• For water pumping, the windmill must provide high starting torque to overcome the weight and friction of the
pumping rod that moves up and down in the well. They must also operate in low wind speeds in order to provide
nearly continuous water pumping throughout the year. Their multibladed design presents a large area of rotor facing
into the wind, which enables both high torque and low speed operation.

• As the revolutions per minute (rpm) of the turbine increases, the turbulence caused by one blade affects the efficiency
of the blade that follows. With fewer blades, the turbine can spin faster before this interference becomes excessive,
and a faster spinning shaft means generators can be physically smaller in size.

• All large, modern turbines have three blades

Key components of Wind-Energy Conversion System

• The function of the blades is to convert kinetic energy in the wind into rotating shaft power to spin a generator that
produces electric power.

• Shaft rotation is too slow to directly couple to a generator, so a

gearbox transfers power from the low speed shaft to a higher speed
shaft that spins the generator.

• Another gearbox and motor adjust the yaw to keep the blades facing
into the wind when generating power, as well as turning the rotors out
of the wind when winds are too strong to safely operate the turbine.

WIND TURBINE TECHNOLOGY: ROTORS

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WIND TURBINE TECHNOLOGY: ROTORS

.A roughly 1–2 MW each, had hub heights of 50–80 m, and blade diameters of 80–100 m. A decade or so later the
largest machines, designed primarily for the more consistent high winds offshore, were as large as 7 MW with blades over
150 m in diameter.

• To understand how rotor blades extract energy from wind consider air-foil cross section. An airfoil, whether it is the
wing of an airplane or the blade of a windmill, takes advantage of Bernoulli’s principle to obtain lift.

• Air moving over the top of the air-foil has a greater distance to travel before it can rejoin the air that took the shortcut
under the foil.

• That means the air on top moves faster causing its pressure to be lower than that under the airfoil, which creates the
lifting force that holds an airplane up or that causes a wind turbine blade to rotate.

• The combination of wind and blade motion is like adding two vectors, with the resultant moving across the airfoil at
the correct angle to obtain lift that moves the rotor along. Since the blade is moving much faster at the tip than near
the hub, the blade must be twisted along its length to keep the angles right.

• Up to a point, increasing the angle between the airfoil and the wind (called the angle of attack), improves lift at the
expense of increased drag.

• However, increasing the angle of attack too much can result in a phenomenon known as stall. When a wing stalls, the
airflow over the top no longer sticks to the surface and the resulting turbulence destroys lift.

Pitch and Stall Control

• Power delivered by a wind turbine increases rapidly with increasing wind speed. At some wind speed, the generator
reaches its maximum capacity at which point there must be some way to shed some of the wind’s power or else the
generator may be damaged.

•
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 • Three approaches are common on large machines: a passive stall-control design, an active pitch-control system, and
an active stall-control combination of the two.

○ For stall-controlled machines, the blades are carefully designed to automatically reduce efficiency when winds are
excessive. Nothing rotates—as it does in pitch-controlled schemes—and there are no moving parts, so this is
referred to as passive control. The aerodynamic design of the blades, especially their twist as a function of
distance from the hub, must be very carefully done so that a gradual reduction in lift occurs as the blades rotate
faster. This approach is simple and reliable, but it sacrifices some power at lower wind speeds. It has been
popular on wind turbines less than about 1 MW in size.

○ For pitch-controlled turbines, an electronic system monitors the generator output power and if it exceeds
specifications, the pitch of the turbine blades is adjusted to shed some of the wind. Physically, a hydraulic system
slowly rotates the blades about their axes, turning them a few degrees at a time to reduce or increase their
efficiency as conditions dictate. The strategy is to reduce the blade’s angle of attack when winds are high. Most
large turbines rely on this approach for controlling the power output.

○ The third approach is an active stall-control scheme in which the blades rotate just as they do in the active, pitch-
control approach. The difference is, however, that when winds exceed the rated wind speed for the generator,
instead of reducing the angle of attack of the blades, it is increased to induce stall.

POWER IN THE WIND

Consider a “packet” of air with mass m moving at a speed v. Its kinetic energy, KE, is given by the familiar relationship:

Since power is energy per unit time, the power represented by a mass of air moving at velocity v through area
A will be:

The mass flow rate m', through area A, is the product of air density ρ, speed v, and cross-sectional area A:

Temperature and Altitude Correction for Air Density

The air density is taken as 1.225 kg/m3; under air temperature is 15◦C (59◦F) and pressure is 1 atm (sea
level). Using the ideal gas law, we can easily determine the air density under other conditions.

where p is the absolute pressure (atm), V is the volume (m3), n is the mass (mol), R is the ideal gas constant (8.2056 × 10−
5m3 · atm · K−1 · mol−1 ), and T is absolute temperature (K). Note pressure is in atmospheres, where 1 atm of pressure
equals 101.325 kPa.

 If we let M.W. stand for the molecular weight of the gas (g/mol), we can write the following expression for air density, ρ:

Since we are working with air, we can easily figure out its equivalent molecular weight by looking at its constituent molecules,

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Since we are working with air, we can easily figure out its equivalent molecular weight by looking at its constituent molecules,
which are mostly nitrogen (78.08%), oxygen (20.95%), a little bit of argon (0.93%), carbon dioxide (0.039%), and so forth.

Using the constituent molecular weights (N2 = 28.02, O2 = 32.00, Ar = 39.95, CO2 = 44.01) we find the equivalent molecular
weight of air to be

 Air density, and hence power in the wind, depends on atmospheric pressure as well as temperature. Since air pressure is
a function of altitude, it is useful to have a correction factor to help estimate wind power at sites above sea level.

 Consider a static column of air with cross section A. A horizontal slice of air in that column of thickness dz and density
ρ, will have mass ρ Adz. If the pressure at the top of the slice due to the weight of the air

Impact of Tower Height

where v is the wind speed at height H, v0 is the wind speed at height H0 (often a
reference height of 10 m), and α is a friction coefficient sometimes called the
Hellman exponent or the shear exponent.

The Betz Limit

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The Betz Limit

Wind approaching from the left is slowed down as a portion of its kinetic energy is extracted by the turbine. The wind
leaving the turbine has a lower velocity and its pressure is reduced, causing the air to expand downwind of the
machine. An envelope drawn around the air mass that passes through the turbine forms what is called a stream tube.

The mass flow rate of air within the stream tube is everywhere the
same, call it m'. The power extracted by the blades Pb is equal to the
difference in kinetic energy between the upwind and downwind air
flows:

This conclusion—that the maximum theoretical efficiency of a rotor is 59.3%—is called the Betz efficiency or
sometimes Betz’ law

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Wind Generators
21 August 2023 16:21

Type 1 WTG
• Type 1 generators are directly grid-connected induction generators (IGs) with fixed rotor resistance. An example is
the squirrel cage induction generator (SCIG).

• The wind turbine rotor (WTR) is connected to the IG via a gearbox (GB). Most Type 1 WTGs are equipped with
mechanically switched capacitor (MSC) banks, which provide reactive power compensation. As the protection device,
the main circuit breaker (CB) disconnects the generator and capacitor from the grid in the event of a fault. Through a
step-up transformer (TR), the WTG is connected to the grid.

• Because of the direct connection to the grid, the IG operates at its natural mechanical characteristic, with an
accentuated slope (corresponding to a small slip, normally 1–2%) from the rotor resistance. The rotational speed of
the IG is close to the synchronous speed imposed by grid frequency, and is not affected significantly by wind
variation.

Type -2 WTG
• Type 2 generators are directly grid-connected IGs with variable rotor resistance (VRR).

• As an evolution of Type 1 WTGs, using regulation through power electronics, the total (internal plus external) rotor
resistance is adjustable. In this way, the slip of the generator can be controlled, which affects the slope of the
mechanical characteristic.

• The range of dynamic speed variation is decided by the additional resistance. Usually, the control range is up to 10%
over the synchronous speed.

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Type 3 WTG

• Type 3 generators are double-fed induction generators (DFIGs). The DFIG is an induction generator with the stator
windings connected directly to the three-phase, constant-frequency grid and the rotor windings connected to back-to-
back voltage source converters (VSCs), including a rotor-side converter (RSC) and grid-side converter (GSC).

• The power flow of the stator is always from wind turbine to grid. However, the power flow of the rotor is dependent
on the operating point.

• If the slip is negative (over-synchronous operation), it feeds power into the grid.
• If the slip is positive (sub-synchronous operation), it absorbs power from the grid.

• In both cases, the power flow in the rotor is approximately proportional to the slip. By regulation of the generator
behaviour through the GSC controller, the rotation speed is allowed to operate over a larger, but still restricted range
(normally 40%).

Type 4 WTG

• Type 4 WTGs have the wind turbine connected fully through a power converter.

• The generator type can be either an induction generator or a synchronous generator.

• Furthermore, the synchronous generator can be either a wound-rotor synchronous generator (WRSG) or a
permanent-magnet synchronous generator (PMSG). Currently, the latter is widely used by the wind turbine industry.

• The back-to-back VSC configuration is used. The RSC ensures the rotational speed is adjusted within a large range,
whereas the GSC transfers the active power to the grid and attempts to cancel the reactive power consumption.

• These four WTG types can also be classified into two categories according to the rotor speed control criterion: fixed-speed wind
turbines (FSWTs), including Type 1, and variable-speed wind turbines (VSWTs), including Types 2–4.

• FSWTs have the advantage of being simple, robust and reliable, with simple and inexpensive electric systems. They are well-proven

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• FSWTs have the advantage of being simple, robust and reliable, with simple and inexpensive electric systems. They are well-proven
in operation. Moreover, they can naturally provide the inertial response.

• However, as FSWTs have limited controllability of rotational speed, the captured aerodynamic efficiency is restricted. Due to the
fixed-speed operation, mechanical stress is important. All fluctuations in wind speed are transmitted into mechanical torque and then,
as electrical fluctuations, into the grid.

• Due to the regulation of rotor speed within a larger range, VSWTs, especially Types 3 and 4, are highly controllable, allowing
maximum power extraction over a large range of wind speeds. In addition, the active and reactive power control can be fully
decoupled and implemented separately, and they are therefore they are more flexible.

• VSWTs dominate the marketplace, especially in the megawatt class. Due to the electrical decoupling between the generator and the
grid, they cannot contribute to the power system apparent inertial as conventional synchronous generators. However, the inertial
response can be emulated by an additional power or torque loop.

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