ECN publication
Title:
Sustainable Control. a new approach to operate wind turbines. Final public report
 
Author(s):
Kanev, S.K.; Engelen, T.G. van; Engels, W.P.; Wei, X.; Dong, J.; Verhaegen, M.
 
Published by: Publication date:
ECN Wind Energy 28-6-2012
 
ECN report number: Document type:
ECN-E--12-028 ECN publication
 
Number of pages: Full text:
263 Download PDF  

Abstract:
This final report summarizes the work performed in the framework of the long-term EOS research project "Sustainable Control. A new approach to operate wind turbines", partially financed by the Dutch agency governmental AgentschapNL under number EOSLT02013. Within this project, a novel approach to operate wind turbines more efficiently has been developed, that integrates wind turbine control, monitoring and supervisory control into one concept: "Sustainable Control" (SusCon). The SusCon concept reduces extreme and fatigue loads on the main wind turbine components by means of combining the four major components: (1) Optimized Feedback Control (OFC) for reduction of the wind turbine costs and the limitations for upscaling by means of decreased wind turbine loads under normal operational conditions, (2) Fault Tolerant Control (FTC) for prevention of unneccessary standstill by means of an integration of self-adaptive controls and detection methods for component degradations, (3) Extreme Event Control (EEC) for reduction of turbine costs and increase of the certainty of electricity production by means of reduced turbine loads during extreme operating conditions, and (4) Optimal Shutdown Control (OSC) for avoidance of accumulation of damage during shutdowns resulting from a serious defects by means of condition-specific shutdown control. These concepts have first been developed in theory, and next verified by Proof-of-principle experiments. These experiments demonstrate significant reduction of fatigue during normal operation conditions, and extreme loads during strong wind gusts and/or serious system failures.


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