Performance optimization for doubly fed wind power generation systems

Significant variation of the resource kinetic energy, in the form of wind speed, results in substantially reduced energy capture in a fixed-speed wind turbine. In order to increase the wind energy capture in the turbine, variable-speed generation (VSG) strategies have been proposed and implemented. However, that requires an expensive AC/AC power converter, which increases the capital investment significantly. Consequently, doubly-fed systems have been proposed to reduce the size of the power converter and, thereby, the associated cost, additionally, in doubly fed systems, at a fixed operating point (power and speed), power flow can be regulated between the two winding systems on the machine. This feature can be utilized to essentially minimize losses in the machine associated with the given operating point or achieve other desired performance enhancements. In this paper, a brushless doubly fed machine (BDFM) is utilized to develop a VSG wind power generator. The VSG controller employs a wind speed estimation-based maximum power point tracker and a heuristic-model-based maximum efficiency point tracker to optimize the power output of the system. The controller has been verified for efficacy on a 1.5 kW laboratory VSG wind generator. The strategy is applicable to all doubly fed configurations, including conventional wound-rotor induction machines, Scherbius cascades, BDFMs and doubly fed reluctance machines.