Torque- and Speed Control of a Pitch Regulated Wind Turbine

Abstract

Variable speed operated wind turbines has the potential to reduce fatigue loads, compared to fixed speed wind turbines. With pitch controllable rotor blades limitation of the power at high wind speeds is obtained. The thesis describes different controlling aspects concerning wind turbines and how these together can be used to optimize the system's performance. Torque control is used in order to achieve reduction on the mechanical loads on the drive-train for low wind speeds and limitation of power output for high wind speeds. In the high wind speed interval torque control is effective in order to limit the output power if a suffciently fast pitch actuator is used. In the middle wind speed interval filter utilization can be used to give a reference signal to the controller in order to reduce speed and torque variations.