2008 International Conference on MultiMedia and Information Technology
Research on Control System of High Power DFIG Wind Power System
Li jianlin
Institute of Electrical Engineering
Chinese Academy of Science
Beijing, China
e-mail: ljl@mail.iee.ac.cn
Abstract—Compared with constant speed constant frequency
wind turbine, variable speed constant frequency wind turbine
has many advantages: higher efficiency of wind energy
converting to electric power, absorbing gust energy, smoothly
cutting into the network system, flexible connecting between
wind turbine and network system and low operating noise.
Currently the variable speed constant frequency technology ha
s become one of the main development directions of wind
power generation. A disturbance accommodating Linear
Quadratic Regulator (LQR) method was applied in pitch
control system to achieve good performance.Based on the
model of MW variable speed constant frequency wind turbine,
this paper analyses three speed control methods, simulates
corresponding characteristics of each method, and then gives
discussions. On the condition of discussing and analyzing on
simulation results and allowing for the characteristics of large
power variable speed constant frequency wind turbine and its
control system, this paper adopts power control closed-loop
strategy to realize variable speed operating. At last, this paper
designs a control system of MW variable speed constant
frequency wind turbine, and takes sufficient experiments and
long-time preliminary operation at a real Wind Farm, which
validates the feasibility and practicability of varying speed
control strategies on MW variable speed constant frequency
wind turbine suggested in this paper.
Keywords- wind power;DFIG;high power;LQR; variable
speed constant frequency; constant power control
Introduction
With unit-capacity increase of wind turbine, more and more
wind turbines are researched. At present, doubly-fed wind
turbine takes up most of the wind power field, however,
direct-drive wind turbines are receiving increasing attention
due to their inherent advantages, for example, the direct-
drive wind turbine with 1.2—1.5MW capacity is produced,
and already realizes the operation of grid-connection.With
the further development of world economy and the
accelerating of international industrialization, countries all
over the world need more and more energy and the speed of
consuming energy is faster and faster day after day, so
conventional energy sources will be used up soon. In order to
release the energy crisis, governments and science research
people began the development and research of renewable
energy. As one kind of renewable energy sources wind
energy has autologous dominance, such as clean, unpolluted
and never being used up. The main format of using wind
energy is wind turbine which converts wind energy into
978-0-7695-3556-2/08 $25.00 © 2008 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/MMIT.2008.45
Xu honghua
Institute of Electrical Engineering
Chinese Academy of Science
Beijing, China
e-mail: ljl@mail.iee.ac.cn
electric energy. At present, from existing state all over the
world it can be seen that large-sized and middle-sized
interconnected wind turbine is the main developing direction
of wind power generation. For reducing the production cost
and improving the efficiency of wind power, the single-
machine capacity of wind turbine is increased in all countries
developing wind power. In other countries, wind turbines of
which the single-machine capacity is from 500KW to
1.5MW are on the market.
I. SYSTEM SCHEMATIC
Control system is the core of wind turbine and the control
technology is the key of wind power. Having close relations
with other parts of wind turbine, the exact controlling and
perfect functions of control system influence the reliability
and efficiency of the wind turbine directly. The control
system is the brain of the wind turbine and ensures that the
whole system can be operating in optimal state. And it
mainly includes following parts: main circuit, control
circuit, convertor ， sensors and their communicating
interface.
Main circuit is the main electrical loop of wind turbine,
and its main function is to complete the connections of
generator and electric network, each actuating mechanism
and control loop. When the control center sends controlling
order, the main circuit will connect generator, each
actuating mechanism in wind-machine and supply power
supply to control circuit, including 690VAC, 220VAC and
24VDC.
Control circuit is composed of PLC and its extended
function models. Its main function is to control wind turbine
operating normally, safeguard components of the turbine,
detect and deal with the operating errors, modify and save
operating parameters, and display operating record.
In the course of designing control electric circuit,
allowing for that wind turbine usually operates in bad
natural environment and there is nobody watching it, we
need control system must be more reliable and safe. PLC,
widely used in the industrial control field, has high
reliability and anti-interference ability, so it adapts to
operating environment of wind turbine. With consideration
of control needs and practical features of wind turbine, we
choose S7-300 PLC from Siemens as the central controller,
in order to meet following needs.
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1) Input and output signals are isolated with control signals,
effectively prevent interference signals;2) The controller
itself can effectively prevent radiation disturbance;3)
Guarantee the quality of power supply, prevent disturbing
from power circuit;4) Have self diagnosing function, in case
of faults happening controller can alarm at once;5) When
power supply is cut off or the system stop running, the
relevant information and state data will never lost.
II. CONTROL SYTTEM ANALYSIS
A. Maximum Capture of Wind Energy
According to Betz proven, the power wind turbine
capturing from wind energy is:
2 3
P = 0.5 ρπ R C (λ , β )ν
T p
(1)
In above equation, ρ is air density; ν is wind speed; R is
radius of blade; Cp(λ, β) is power coefficient of wind
generator which is a function of λ and β; λ= ωTR/ν, and ωT
is revolution angular velocity of generator .
For a certain wind turbine, when β is fixed, there is
always a optimal λopt corresponding to a optimal power
coefficient, at this time conversion efficiency of wind
turbine is the highest, as shown in Fig.1. In other words,
according to a certain wind speed ν, in order to get the
highest efficiency of wind turbine it must operate at a
special revolution speed ωT.
C ~λ
Fig. 1 Wind generator p cure
Fig.2 shows power features of wind turbine at different
wind speed (ν1>ν2>ν3). Curve Popt is a line which
connects each biggest power corresponding to each wind
speed, which can be called the optimal power curve.
Operating on this power curve, the wind turbine can
produce the biggest power Pmax at a certain wind speed. It
can be seen that at a fixed wind speed, operating at different
revolution speed wind turbine will produce different electric
power. Thus, if we want to trace Popt curve, in order to keep
wind turbine operating at optimal λopt we must adjust
revolution speed when wind speed changes.
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Fig.2 Power characteristic of wind turbine
Through analyzing figure 2, the course of wind turbine
capturing optimal wind energy. Supposed that at first wind
turbine is operating stably at point A on curve Popt at wind
speed ν3, and output power of wind turbine balances with
input power of generator, which is Pa，when the generator
was running stably at revolution speed ω1. If wind speed
rises to ν2，wind turbine will operate at point B jumping
from A, its output power changes to Pb from Pa suddenly.
Due to the function of system inertia and lag of adjusting,
generator still operates at point A, when the input power is
larger than output, which will make revolution speed
increase. In the course of revolution speed rising, speeds of
wind turbine and generator rise along BC curve and AC
curve, respectively. When achieve at point C where wind
turbine power curve and optimal power curve intersect,
output power of wind turbine will balance its input power
again. The revolution speed of generator is stably at ω2,
which is the optimal revolution speed corresponding to wind
speed ν2. In the same way, we can analyse the inverse
adjusting course from wind speed ν1 to ν2.
B. Varying speed control
Connecting to network, when the wind speed is lower
than rated value, the wind turbine will operating at a certain
stage, which is named varying speed control stage of wind
turbine. On theory, during this stage wind turbine can
realize optimal wind energy capturing through the control of
tracing optimal power coefficient. However, because of
influences from physical features of mechanical structure,
output of wind turbine is limited by two basic factors:
revolution speed limitation and power limitation. Therefore,
the wind turbine operating at this stage has two running
zones: Cpmax constant and speed constant zones. In
Cpmax constant zone which is also named constant tip-
speed ratio zone ， wind turbine operates in optimal state.
With wind speed increasing, revolution speed increases.
When revolution speed achieves to the largest speed wind
turbine permitted, in the condition that power is lower than
rated power wind turbine, it will be controlled at a constant
value. In revolution speed constant zone, with wind speed
increasing, Cp decreases, but power is still becoming larger,
after achieving at the limitation of power, wind turbine will
turn into power constant zone. At varying speed stage, pitch
angle β is constant.
3. Pitch control strategy based
After connected to the grid, wind turbine can work in
two modes: one mode is when wind speed is slower that
rated wind speed, another is when faster. When wind speed
is slow, wind turbine output power is smaller than rated
power. So the pitch angle is set to 0° and wind turbine runs
in optimal tip speed by controlling generator speed, in order
to absorb as much wind energy as possible. While wind
speed is faster than rated speed, the output power will
excess rated power. Because the electrical and mechanical
limitation of wind turbine, the rotator speed and output
power cannot excess rated value. Nowadays variance speed
pitch-control wind turbine always has its electromagnetic
torque given value constant, maintaining output power by
regulating generator speed. The most common method is
adopting PI control to regulate generator speed. This method
is simple and easily applied in engineering. However, PI
control may have overshoot problems, which makes pitch
actuator complicated and easily fatigued.
LQR is linear quadrics regular, whose control object is
linear system given by state space form in modern control
theory. And its object function is object states and quadrics
function which controls input. LQR optimal control is
designing state feedback controller G. In order to minimize
the quadrics object function J , and also G is decided only
by weight matrix Q and R, the selection of Q and R is very
important. LQR theory is a relatively mature theory in
modern control theory. It provided an efficient analysis
method for multi-variable feedback system. Object function
J included state variable and input variable, which requires
state variable and input variable to be small. In the pitch-
control system, input value is the error of pitch angle.
Because of large inertia of blade, rapid pitch-control would
damage pitch regulated mechanism and aggravate the
friction of pitch-control shaft. So, having some limitation to
input energy will be reasonable. Additionally, choosing
torque variation as state variable can suppress torque ripple
as much as possible in LQR optimal control. Then the life of
wind turbine can be extanded.
Set linear length-determined system’s state function as :
⎧ x = Ax + Bu + Γu D
⎨ When safety chain acts, machines will stop urgently, all
⎩ y = Cx (15)
Object function：
[
1 tf
]
J = ∫t x T (t )Qx(t ) + u T (t ) Ru (t ) dt
2 0
(16)
where Q is positive semidefinite matrix， R is positive
definite matrix ， Q and R are weighted matrix for state
variable and input variable respectively. x(t) is n-dimension
state variable ， u(t) is m-dimension input variable.
According to control theory, in order to minimize object
function, optimal control is:
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u (t ) = Gx(t ) −1 T
， G = −R B P
Where P is Riccati function：
− PA − AT P + PBR −1 B T P − Q = 0
(17)
Positive definite symmetric solution. The LQR control
diagram is shown as Fig. 3. In engineering application, state
variable cannot be measured usually. So it needs to design a
state observer to estimate state variable value. Fig. 2(b) is
the diagram used in actual application.
x̂
Fig.3 LQR control theory diagram
III. CONTROL SYSTEM SAFEGUARD FUNCTION
A. Brake function
Brake system is an important link of safeguard system in
wind turbine. Hardware is composed of pitch brake，yaw
brake and brake on main shaft, driven by hydraulic pressure
system. The design of brake function is according to
principle of protecting when power off. In other words,
brake system will be in station of brake protection when
power off. When wind turbine needs stopping because of
errors, controller identifies error and sends corresponding
orders to drive brake system, respectively, to pause, stop, or
emergency stop wind turbine.
B. Safety chain
Safety chain of the system is a kind of hardware
safeguard device which is independent of center control
system. Supposed the program of control system is running
out of its way, safety chain can still work normally. Safety
chain is adopted the design mode of inverse logic, linking
all switches as a loop, each switch corresponding to
transnormal faults which may do fatal harm to wind turbine.
actuating mechanism will be cut off from power supply,
realizing to protect system maximatily.
C. Lightning protection function
Because most wind turbines are stalled at places with a
draught in valleys or mountaintops of islands, they are likely
to be struck by thunder and lighting, especially stalled in
thunderstorm districts. Control system is inclined to be
damaged by over-voltage caused by thunder and lighting[6],
so in the design for MW wind turbine, we devise lightning
protection system in special. when using lightning arrester
to absorb lightning current, it is easy to neglect differences
between lightning arresters at different phases. For inroad
waves of lightning and thunder add to each phase at the
same time, if differences from them are large, there will
form peak wave between phases which will harm control
system through power supply transformer. Therefore, when
designing, we take use of three lightning arresters with the
same absorb capability in grade one lightning protection and
do so when deal with in grade two and three. Lightning
protections for control system are designed at following
positions,
1) Input side of three phase 690AC V in main circuit,
lightning protection grade one;2) Output side of two phase
220V from 690ACV/220ACV to the actuating mechanism
of control system, lightning protection grade two;3)
Communication circuit;4) Power input side of control
system, lightning protection grade three.
IV. SIMULATION VALIDATION
A 3-minute simulation is performed using the proposed
method and conventional method. In the simulation, the
rated power of wind turbine is 1615 kW, rated torque is 916
kNm, gear box ratio is 104, and the speed range is 9.6～
17.3±12%. Fig.4 shows the wind speed in simulation, wind
speed range from 14m/s to 21 m/s.
22
20
Wind speed (m/s)
18
16
14
12
10
0 20 40 60 80
Time (s)
Fig. 4 Wind speed for 3-minute simulation
25
20
Pitch angle (Deg)
15
10
5
0
0 20 40 60 80
Time (s)
Fig. 5 Pitch angle in simulation
Fig. 5 shows the pitch angle of the two control method. We
can see that the proposed method pitch action is less than
that of PI method. To represent the pitch fatigue we can
define PVR (Pitch Varying Rate) = (total varied pitch angle)
/ time. In the 3-min simulation, the PVR of propose method
is 0.985, and the PVR of conventional method without dead
zone is 1.87. We can see that the proposed method has less
pitch action, namely the pitch fatigue is smaller then PI
method.
V. CONCLUSION
Nowadays, wind power generating system is one of the
most useful generating system, which harness natural
energy. Therefore, many application examples are reported
in the world Most of these are large-scale generating
system whose output are over 100kW even 5MW. With the
capability of the generating system becoming larger and
larger, permanent magnet type synchronous generator gets
more widely used in wind power generating
system.Compared with other type of wind turbine, variable
speed constant frequency wind turbine has a strongpoint,
exporting stable power when wind speed is higher than rated
wind speed value. Further more, at this time wind turbine
not only exports stable power avoiding of vibrating, but also
keeps the flexibility of driving system, as considered to
protect wind turbine efficiently. Therefore, what it needs for
control system is more complicated than fixed pitch wind
turbine. So as to enhance pitch control performance of large
wind turbine, this paper constructed wind turbine’s
dynamics model, giving a LQR pitch-control algorithm
based on disturbance correction according to LQR control
theory. In the light of its features above, we developed the
control system of MW variable speed constant frequency
wind turbine. Besides, we believe perfect protect function of
control system is the primary guarantee for running in safe
situation, and it is also one of important factors during
judging a control system. Therefore, during the course of
developing this system, we take into general consideration
on the aspect of safety in order to ensure wind turbine run
reliably and steadily.
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