A Dynamic Control Strategy for Wind Turbines in Wind Farms

Abstract

SUMMARY This paper presents a new control method for wind turbine groups by use of dynamic control including pump‐up operation. Under conditions of oscillating wind below the rated speed of the wind turbine, maximum power point tracking (MPPT) operation is critical to improving efficiency. Even though, owing to the huge inertia of a wind turbine, the operating point of the wind turbine produces an unavoidable delay at the maximum power point, if dynamic control is used wind turbines respond to the changes in the wind speed more rapidly. The wind turbines hence reach the maximum power point quickly and capture energy from the wind more efficiently. On the other hand, as a result of dynamic operation, the output from a wind turbine fluctuates more severely than during normal operation. In the proposed solution, by taking advantage of the kinematic energy stored in other wind turbines that belong to the same wind farm, not only the efficiency of output power but also the severity of the fluctuations is improved. In the results of simulations, group dynamic operation enables wind farms to improve their efficiency and smooth the output fluctuations from the wind farm.