This paper presents the design and implementation of a hardware-in-the-loop testing framework, for electrical certification of wind turbine nacelles on a dynamometer test rig. This is to enable a realistic test environment in the laboratory, comparable to that in the field. Assessment of electrical properties of wind turbines are usually executed in the field for the complete prototype, however, in the laboratory, missing system components have to be emulated and the effect of test rig’s own actuators are to be attenuated. Therefore, implementation of an adequate real-time wind turbine simulation tool, an efficient control system for the test rig drive train, and a real-time automation system are considered and presented here. Furthermore, execution of type certification experiments according to national and international guidelines is described here and illustrative measurements are provided. The measurements in this case are obtained at Dynamic Nacelle Laboratory, while testing with the Enercon E-115E2 turbine. The results achieved demonstrate successful test execution in the laboratory and declare the advantage of test rigs.

Modern wind turbines have a driving torque in the range of up to 10 MNm. The measurement of such high torques poses challenges, as there is no standard measurement equipment for this torque level available today. During the EU funded EcoSwing project, the world’s first superconducting low-cost and lightweight multi-megawatt wind turbine generator has been designed and tested on the DyNaLab nacelle test rig of Fraunhofer IWES. For this test campaign, a specifically designed torque measurement system has been developed to measure the torque directly at the flange of the device under test in order to evaluate the efficiency of the power train.

The 10 MW Dynamic Nacelle Testing Laboratory of Fraunhofer IWES provides a controlled environment for performing electrical and mechanical tests on a wind turbine nacelle. Apart from physical testing, system level simulations are another paradigm in the framework of nacelle testing. In this contribution, the development of a dynamic model of the load application system for the 10 MW nacelle test bench is presented. The test bench load application system controls are integrated in the model via co-simulation in Simulink. The model is evaluated using experimental results. By utilizing the modal strain recovery method, a direct comparison of the strain results of the model with the experimental results is achieved. Moreover, it is shown that the actual applied loads on the device under test can be estimated by analysing the strain readings. The developed model provides a platform for developing a high fidelity virtual nacelle test bench.

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