Emulation of a GE 1.5MW wind turbine with a DC motor

Abstract

In order to provide a testing environment for generator control strategies, a wind turbine emulator was developed. First, a mathematical model was developed for a GE 1.5MW wind turbine generator based on modeling data provided by GE. Using this data a function relating maximum power output and wind speed was developed along with a one-mass model of the turbine. The model was implemented in a software simulation along with controllers for a DC motor acting as the wind turbine and a dynamometer acting as the generator. The software simulation was implemented in LabVIEW and read in a data le containing high sample rate (20 Hz) wind speed data, calculated the optimal power from that wind speed, and generated control signals for the DC motor and dynamometer. The e ectiveness of the controller was found by calculating the mean-square error be- tween the optimal power calculated by the simulation turbine model and the actual power produced by the DC motor/dynamometer combination. Two 800 second wind speed data les were used as test inputs for the emulator: a low-speed low-frequency wind pro le and a turbulent or varying-speed wind pro le. The results of the controller development using these two wind speeds show that the turbine inertia is a signi cant factor in following the optimal power output of a wind turbine. The time constant of the generator speed-tracking function used by GE also plays a signi cant role in how quickly the system can respond to changes in wind speed.