A novel combined MPPT-pitch angle control for wide range variable speed wind turbine based on neural network

The objective of this paper is to develop a novel combined MPPT-pitch angle robust control system of a variable-speed wind turbine. The direct driven wind turbine using the permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) is connected to the grid by means of fully controlled frequency converters, which consist of a pulse width-modulation PWM rectifier connected to an inverter via an intermediate DC bus. In order to maximize the exploited wind power and benefit from a wide range of the wind speed, a novel combined maximum power point tracking (MPPT)-Pitch angle control is developed using only one low cost circuit based on Neural Network (ANN), which allows the PMSG to operate at an optimal speed to extract maximum power when this last is lower than nominal power, and limit the extra power. To achieve feeding the grid with high-power and good quality of electrical energy, the inverter is controlled by (PWM) in a way to deliver only the active power into the grid, and thus to obtain a unit power factor. DC-link voltage is also controlled by the inverter. The dynamic and steady-state performances of the wind energy conversion system (WECS) are carried by using Matlab Simulink. (C) 2016 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.