Development of a 20 kW wind turbine simulator with similarities to a 3 MW wind turbine

As the use of wind power has steadily increased, the importance of a condition monitoring and fault diagnosis system is being emphasized to maximize the availability and reliability of wind turbines. To develop novel algorithms for fault detection and lifespan estimation, a wind turbine simulator is indispensible for verification of the proposed algorithms before introducing them into a health monitoring and integrity diagnosis system. In this paper, a new type of simulator is proposed to develop and verify advanced diagnosis algorithms. The simulator adopts a torque control method for a motor and inverter to realize variable speed-variable pitch control strategies. Unlike conventional motor-generator configurations, the simulator includes several kinds of components and a variety of sensors. Specifically, it has similarity to a 3 MW wind turbine, thereby being able to acquire a state of operation that closely resembles that of the actual 3 MW wind turbine operated at various wind conditions. This paper presents the design method for the simulator and its control logic. The experimental comparison between the behavior of the simulator and that of a wind turbine shows that the proposed control logic performs successfully and the dynamic behaviors of the simulator have similar trends as those of the wind turbine. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.