392
2, JUNE 2004
Optimum Control Strategies in Energy Conversion
of PMSG Wind Turbine System Without
Mechanical Sensors
Kelvin Tan, Student Member, IEEE, and Syed Islam, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—The amount of energy obtained from a wind energy
conversion system (WECS) depends not only on the characteris-
tics of the wind regime at the site, but it also depends on the con-
trol strategy used for the WECS. In order to determine the gain
in energy derived from one concept as compared against another,
models of several autonomous WECS have been developed using
Matlab Simulink software. These allow easy performance evalu-
ations and comparisons on different control strategies used, and
determine the amount of energy injected to the grid in the case
of the grid-connected systems. This paper also proposes a proto-
type version of the control strategy of a 20-kW permanent-magnet
synchronous generator (PMSG) for maximum power tracking and
compares with the results produced by previous strategies. Advan-
tages of this mechanical sensorless control strategy for maximum
power estimation are demonstrated by digital simulation of the
system.
Index Terms—Energy capture, maximum power tracking,
PMSG wind turbine, sensorless control.
I. INTRODUCTION
O PTIMUM wind energy extraction is achieved by running
the wind turbine generator (WTG) in variable-speed vari-
able-frequency mode. The rotor speed is allowed to vary in sym-
pathy with the wind speed by maintaining the tip speed ratio
to the value that maximizes aerodynamic efficiency. In order to
achieve this ratio, the permanent-magnet synchronous generator
(PMSG) load line should be matched very closely to the max-
imum power line of the wind turbine generator. In such a case,
a good matching exists between the generator and the load for
the best performance of the system, as well as the maximum uti-
lization of the wind driven PMSG. However, the recent advance-
ments in power electronics and control strategies have made it
possible to regulate the voltage of the PMSG in many different
ways. When the generator torque line can be controlled, the gen-
erator loading of the turbine can be made to follow the desired
locus such as the optimum shaft power locus.
Manuscript received February 28, 2003. This work was supported in part by
the Australian Commonwealth’s Cooperative Research Centres’ Program. The
work described in this paper has been supported by the Australian Cooperative
Research Centre for Renewable Energy Ltd. (ACRE). K. Tan was supported
by an ACRE Postgraduate Research Scholarship. Both authors wish to thank
CRESTA and School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Curtin Univer-
sity of Technology for supporting the research work.
K. Tan is with the Australian Cooperative Research Centre for Renewable
Energy Ltd., Perth, Australia.
S. Islam is with the Centre of Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technolo-
gies Australia (CRESTA), Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TEC.2004.827038
0885-8969/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 19, NO.
During the last few decades, many different maximum power
point tracking (MPPT) control strategies have been developed
[1], [2]. This enabled the selection of the optimal MPPT for each
WECS project. In addition, a number of theoretical studies have
been made with the aim to establish the energy capture benefits
associated with variable speed operation of WECS. A review of
the recent publications show there is very little agreement on the
gain in projected energy [3]. It must be mentioned here that all
techniques of maximum energy capture in WECS so far have
been based on signals available from an anemometer. Results
of some of these studies are as given below: According to [4],
the best of variable speed operation provided 4% more energy
than fixed speed. Whereas the authors in [5] are more optimistic
suggesting that variable-speed system provided 16% more en-
ergy than fixed speed option, in contrast, the authors in [6] claim
that this gain is up to 20%. Finally, [7] says that it is 38%. To
date, no conclusive evidence is available as to which system is
likely to provide cheaper energy over its lifetime. The discrep-
ancies in energy capture indicate that there is considerable un-
certainty in this area. This is not surprising in view of the various
possible initial assumptions and differences in methodology. In
order to find out the gain in energy capture of one over another,
first, proper definitions of all concepts under comparison must
be made. Next, all concepts under consideration should have
the same parameters and components. Last, all concepts under
consideration should be exposed to exactly the same wind con-
ditions. In this paper, we propose a new technique to capture
maximum energy without the wind speed sensor.
II. MATHEMATICAL MODELING OF EACH WECS ELEMENTS
Before defining the individual control concepts and the
model descriptions, a brief background and description of each
element in the wind energy conversion system is given. The
WECS considered in this work consists of a PMSG driven by a
fixed pitch wind turbine, a diode rectifier, and a current control
pulse-width-modulated (PWM) inverter connected to the grid,
as shown in Fig. 1. A brief description of each element of the
system is given below.
A. Power from Wind Turbine
The output mechanical power of the wind turbine is given by
the usual cube law equation [8]
W (1)
TAN AND ISLAM: OPTIMUM CONTROL STRATEGIES IN ENERGY CONVERSION OF PMSG WIND TURBINE SYSTEM WITHOUT SENSORS 393

Fig. 1. Wind energy conversion system.

Fig. 3. PMSG on test bed.

Fig. 2. Power coefficient versus tip seed ratio with  = 0.
where is the power coefficient which, in turn, is a function
of tip speed ratio and blade angle . This relationship is usu-
ally provided by the turbine manufacturer in the form of a set
of nondimensional curves. is the wind turbine rotor swept
area , is the wind speed (m/s), and is the air density
(kgm-3).
The power coefficient curve for the wind turbine used in
this study is shown in Fig. 2. The tip speed ratio is given by
(2)
where is the radius of the rotor (m), and is the mechanical
angular velocity of the generator (r/s).
For a variable-speed wind turbine with pitch control, op-
timum power can easily be obtained using appropriate control.
However, for small machines that use a fixed pitch, this mech-
anism is not possible. The current paper looks at fixed pitch
machines.
B. PMSG Model
Theoretical models for generator producing power from a
wind turbine have been previously developed [9], [10]. The
outer-rotor 20-kW CRESTA PMSG described in [11] is used
in this WECS mathematical model. The PMSG dynamic
equations are expressed in the “ reference” frame. The
model of electrical dynamics in terms of voltage and current
can be given as (3) and (4) [10]
(3)
(4)
where and are the machine resistance and inductance per
phase, and are the two-axis machine voltages, and and
are the two-axis machine currents. is the amplitude of
the flux linkages established by the permanent magnet, and
. machine.
Fig. 4. Computations and measured voltage regulation of the PMSG.
The above equations are derived assuming that the -axis is
aligned with the stator terminal voltage phasor (i.e., ).
The expression for the electromagnetic (EM) torque in the rotor
is written as
(5)
where is the number of poles of the PMSG, and is the
electrical torque from the generator.
The relationship between the angular frequency of the stator
voltage and the mechanical angular velocity of the rotor
may be expressed as
(6)
The PMSG was physically tested under varying load condi-
tions at five different rotational speeds. The test setup for mea-
suring the voltage variation with the load current is as illustrated
in Fig. 3. The machine was coupled to a car engine simulating
the characteristic of a wind turbine and was tested with a sym-
metrical three-phase resistive load.
The PMSG load test experimental results are shown in Fig. 4.
Here it can be seen that there is a good agreement between the
model and experimental results obtained within normal load
current range. With higher value of current, the model results
diverge from the experiment due to
• variation of the stator armature resistance due to tempera-
ture rises during the test;
• when the rotational frequency is increased, the load angle
and power factor vary in a manner which is influenced by
the nature of the magnetic material and symmetry of the
394
Fig. 5. Block diagram of WECS in Matlab.
C. Uncontrolled Rectifier and Current Controlled Inverter
In the real machine, the wind speed is constantly varying and
so the PMSG produces variable-voltage and variable-frequency
output. A three-phase diode rectifier is used to convert the output
to dc. Assuming that both the commutating angle and commu-
tating inductance is negligible, the rectifier output voltage
and current expression may be simplified and expressed in
terms of the peak phase voltage and current (fundamental com-
ponent) of the generator [12], [13]
(7)
(8)
The dc power available at the rectifier output is converted to
ac power using a PWM current-controlled inverter (CCI) [14],
[15]. The CCI inverter is capable of operating on a wide range of
dc voltages. In order to enable the inverter to track the maximum
power output from the WTG, the output of the wind turbine
generator must be controlled by adjusting the modulation index
M of the reference sinusoidal signal of the PWM inverter. The
sensorless controller is designed to determine the operating dc
voltage of the inverter at various speeds. This action is achieved
by controlling the pulse width of the inverter.
D. Wind-Driven PMSG Characteristics
It is important to understand the voltage, current, and power
characteristics generated by the system at various constant wind
speeds. Fig. 1 shows the components of a typical stand-alone
wind energy conversion system. The dynamic equations of the
various components involving WECS have been discussed in
various sections [9], [10]. Based on these equations, a dynamic
model can be built using software such as Matlab for simulating
the behavior of this entire system for various wind speed vari-
ations and loads. As shown in Fig. 5, this WECS simulation
model is used to calculate the generator stator frequency, the dc
link current, and voltage at various wind speeds. The dc power
output at the dc link is then calculated following a step change
in operating dc voltages. The results of the calculations are for
wind speed ranging from 4 to 12 m/s. Fig. 6 shows the corre-
sponding output power of the PMSG at various wind speeds.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 19, NO. 2, JUNE 2004
Fig. 6. Predicted characteristic (dc power-dc voltage) of the WECS.
Here, the generator maximum power curves show the different
operating dc voltages over a range of wind speeds. In order to
extract the peak power from the WTG at a given wind speed,
the WECS has to operate at the target on the maximum power
curve. The operating dc voltage has to match closely to the max-
imum power curve as shown in Fig. 6 (maximum power versus
dc voltage).
III. DESCRIPTION OF DIFFERENT CONTROL
STRATEGICS METHOD
For maximum power extraction from the wind, the speed
of the rotor can be adjusted by controlling the difference be-
tween the electrical output power and the aerodynamic power
captured. Lower to medium wind speed, with a power con-
verter, the electrical output power can be controlled by varying
the electrical torque applied to the turbine and, therefore, the
rotor speed. As the wind speed increases toward the higher wind
speed region, the power generated by the turbine also increases.
Once the maximum rating of the turbine is reached, mechan-
ical power shedding is usually invoked to protect the system.
Protection mechanism can include passive pitch control, pas-
sive yaw control, and dump load. As mentioned, this paper as-
sumes no active pitch control and assumes the turbine is oper-
ating below the region of protection control. The use of pitch
control as a protective measure may, however, interfere with the
control system modeled in this paper.
As mentioned in the introduction, a proper definition of
the concepts under comparison is needed here. The authors
have considered six control strategies for extracting maximum
power from the wind. The six different control strategies are
summarized in Table I. Brief descriptions of each control
strategies are given below. Methods 1) and 3) to 6) have
been suggested by WECS practitioners in an effort to extract
maximum energy. As shown in Fig. 11, the required operating
voltages for different control strategies are superimposed on
actual operating voltages. The required operating voltage is
obtained by converting the wind speed over the period to
maximum power operating voltage using the maximum power
operating voltage versus wind speed characteristic obtained
from Fig. 6. In this paper, all the control concepts are simulated
using the same wind turbine and PMSG generator model from
the same manufacturer.
TAN AND ISLAM: OPTIMUM CONTROL STRATEGIES IN ENERGY CONVERSION OF PMSG WIND TURBINE SYSTEM WITHOUT SENSORS
TABLE I
SUMMARY OF THE DIFFERENT CONTROL CONCEPTS
A. Developing a New Control Strategy for the
WECS—Derivative and “Power-Mapping” Technique
In the proposed sensorless scheme, the inverter input oper-
ating voltage is determined by a “power-mapping” technique.
The “power-mapping” technique is similar to the one-dimen-
sional lookup table with one input and one output (es-
timated voltage ). The lookup table contains the maximum
power versus dc voltage characteristic as shown in Fig. 6. In
this open-loop control scheme, the controller does not require
a mathematical model of the system/process being controlled.
The block diagram shown in Fig. 7 is the preliminary design of
the sensorless WECS-controlled system.
The control system consists of two signal-tracking loops,
namely the “power-mapping” loop and “alternator frequency
derivative” loop. The tracking signals required for both loops
are the output power from the WECS that is transferred to
the dc link and PMSG stator frequency. The current control
inverter usually has the flexibility to operate over a wide range
of dc input voltages. At a given wind speed, the output dc link
power is used to estimate the optimal dc operating voltage from
the “power-mapping” maximum power versus dc voltage curve
shown in Fig. 6. Due to the sensitivity of to the changes in
for the PMSG, the and will continue to increase or
decrease till the intersection of and at the maximum
power for the given wind speed. The stator frequency will also
be changing (increasing or decreasing) while the operating
dc voltage changes. The alternator frequency derivative loop
result in higher sensitivity of the overall control. Responding
to the rate of changes of the stator frequency, this derivative
control can produce a significant correction to the operating dc
voltage. The gain from frequency derivative loop will become
zero when the operating dc voltage is an optimal one that
leads to the maximum power point. Increasing the gain
in the derivative loop tends to increase the time response of
the system but may not be capable of delivering adequate
stability. The gain in the derivative loop has to be adjusted
carefully to arrive at acceptable performance. The criteria of
tuning the gain are dependent on the moment of inertia of the
overall PMSG wind turbine, sampling rate of the controller,
and response time of the CCI. The constant value is used to
offset the controller output operating voltage to slightly higher
395
Fig. 7. Block diagram of the proposed derivative and “power-mapping”
sensorless WECS-controlled system.
Fig. 8. Controller response time with and without “alternator frequency
derivative” loop.
value. As a result, the maximum power operating voltage will
still operate at the maximum region but at a slightly higher
tip speed ratio. This will prevent the PMSG wind turbine to
operate at the stall region.
The operating voltages of new control strategy with and
without “alternator frequency derivative” loop are shown in
Fig. 8. Fig. 8 shows the dynamic performance of the controller
with “alternator frequency derivative” loop for step response as
the wind speed changes from 6 to 9 m/s. The controller with
“alternator frequency derivative” loop exhibits faster response
and little overshoot. The output operating voltage for the
inverter may have a “droop”-type response for a sudden drop in
wind speed. A negative gain limit is added in the controller for
rejecting high negative gain disturbance. The further increase
of the gain in the derivative loop will result in oscillation
values from the controller. Using the results determined by
“power-mapping” loop and “alternator frequency derivative”
loop, the controller allows the dc bus voltage to vary to the
maximum power operating point.
B. Adapting Previous Control Strategies for the WECS
1) MPPT With Anemometer: Fig. 9 shows the overall con-
trol scheme of the WECS with anemometer sensor. A propor-
tional integrator (PI) controller is used to derive the maximum
possible power from the wind at a different wind speed. The
anemometer provides the wind power reference to the MPPT
controller. This reference is compared with the power extracted
from the WECS, and hence, the input operating dc voltage ref-
erence can be derived. This signal is fed into the current con-
396
Fig. 9. Block diagram of the WECS-controlled system with anemometer.
trol loop of the CCI inverter and gives the instantaneous driving
signal. This driving signal adjusts the torque output, hence, the
wind turbine rotor speed.
2) Wind Prediction Control Scheme: In controlling the
PMSG load line so that it matches very closely to the maximum
power line of the wind turbine generator, it is essential to
know the wind speed. For the sensorless control strategy, no
anemometer is used to provide the controller with the wind
speed conditions; therefore, it is essential to forecast the wind
speed. To predict the wind speed from the historical data,
various techniques are available [16], [17]. Autoregressive
statistical models are commonly used for the wind speed
prediction. In this prediction method, the control strategy
required details of the WECS mathematical model in the
control systems. A block diagram of the wind prediction for
the sensorless WECS-controlled system is shown in Fig. 10.
The prediction control system considers the previous set of
time frame energy captured from the WECS to predict the wind
speed value for the next time frame set. Since the wind predic-
tion system requires previous historical data, two time frame
sets were investigated, namely, the 30-s and 60-s wind predic-
tion [16], [17]. The accuracy of the wind speed prediction de-
pends on the coefficient index, linear prediction coefficient, and
sampling time of the past value of the wind speed inferred from
the turbine output. A higher degree of wind speed prediction ac-
curacy may be achieved by using higher order statistical models
and the WECS mathematical model in the control system. This,
however, demands complex computation and adds to an increase
in the cost of the controller. An acceptable level of performance
can be obtained by using set ranges of wind speed. Using this
methodology, calculation of wind speed can be carried out in-
dependently and the result used to correct the inverter input in
a small number of ranges. In this paper, two such scenarios are
considered, that is, having either three-wind-speed or five-wind-
speed ranges. The operating voltage of the CCI is targeted at
three or five ranges optimum wind speed, depending on the 30-s
and 60-s wind speed prediction.
3) Fixed-Voltage Scheme: For the fixed-voltage situation,
the voltage of the CCI is fixed at a targeted optimum wind
speed. This value would typically be optimized knowing the
Weibull distribution for wind speed at the site. In this control
scheme, no additional software or hardware is needed for the
CCI. The fixed voltage scheme, however, does not vary the
PMSG load line to match the maximum power line of the wind
turbine generator and results in lower conversion efficiency at
wind speed above and below the optimum chosen.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 19, NO. 2, JUNE 2004
Fig. 10. Block diagram of the wind prediction sensorless WECS-controlled
system.
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
The aim of this study is to evaluate the relative energy saving
advantages of various control strategies. Thus, the WECS
control strategies need to be standardized to the same wind
conditions.
In reality, the wind speed varies with time, and wind tur-
bulence is sometimes quite complicated. It thus may lead
to inaccuracies if the system is evaluated based on a single
random wind speed versus time characteristic. To overcome
this problem, three different wind speed characteristics are
provided as input to each of the control strategies. The wind
speed-time characteristic used in this study is based on real
wind data measured in ACRE’s laboratory in Western Australia
with a sampling rate of 1 sample/s. To reduce the extensive
comparison of figures, only one wind speed output character-
istic will be shown in this paper.
It is assumed that the WECS has the same cut-in wind speed
and cut-out wind speed limiting the output power during strong
winds. The use of cut-in wind speed and cut-out wind speed
limiting control as a protective measure may, however, interfere
with the control system modeled in this paper. On achieving the
goal of efficiently tracking the maximum output power from
the wind, the designed controller should respond to the wide
variation of wind speed. A mathematical model of the proposed
WECS is developed. The WECS has been simulated on a PC
using Matlab Simulink software and its toolbox packages
The wind profile input data are shown in Fig. 12(i). In the
event that the wind is fluctuating with a nonuniform distribu-
tion, the output power from the inverter will not be smooth.
Using control strategy (2) [i.e., the proposed controller] as the
wind speed decreased or increased, the controller is to track
maximum power by varying the dc bus voltage over the whole
range of input wind conditions. This is shown in Fig. 12(iv).
Therefore, the peak power shown in Fig. 12(iii) is close to the
actual maximum power for each variation of wind speed. From
Fig. 13(iv), using the control strategy (3) five-speed-30-s sam-
pling, the operating voltage of the dc bus only operates on the
specified five operating wind speed, and the rate of change is
every 30 s. During this 600-s simulation period, the dc voltage
will only change seven times corresponding to the specified five
operating wind speed. In addition, the rate of changes is only un-
dertaken every 30 s of the sampling period. As can be seen from
Fig. 13(ii), when the wind speed picks up or decreases during
TAN AND ISLAM: OPTIMUM CONTROL STRATEGIES IN ENERGY CONVERSION OF PMSG WIND TURBINE SYSTEM WITHOUT SENSORS 397

Fig. 11. Operating voltage of different control strategies.

Fig. 12. WECS output characteristic for derivative and “power-mapping” technique.

each 30-s time frame, the control strategy (3) PMSG stator fre-
quency stays within an operating point and does not vary to cap-
ture the maximum power. Even though the wind speed is higher
than the operating set point, the electrical torque is still higher
than the mechanical torque produced by the wind turbine. This
results in loss of efficiency. For the control method (4) and (5),
there is little variation in the stator frequency during each set of
time frame. The efficiency correspondingly becomes lower as
each set of time frame becomes longer and the number of wind
speed operating points reduces.
The maximum power coefficient of this wind turbine is
approximately 0.457. To maximize the aerodynamic efficiency,
the wind turbine should be operated at maximum most
of the time. is a nondimensional parameter in the WECS,
which varies with the tip-speed ratio, where the tip-speed ratio
is the ratio between the linear speeds of the tip of the blade
with respect to the wind speed. The characteristic can be
very easily calculated using the simulation program. This will
determine which control strategy provides the maximum
operation, correlating directly to the capability of capturing
maximum power quickly. The power coefficient for each
control strategy is shown in Fig. 14. In Fig. 14(i), the
for method (1) (with anemometer) is shown to occur most
frequently in the maximum power range, regardless of wind
speed variation. There are some low values due to sudden
large change in the wind speed. As a result, the overall energy
398
Fig. 13. WECS output characteristic for wind prediction control scheme. Strategy 2) Five-speed-30-s sampling.
Fig. 14. C characteristic for different control scheme.
captured is optimized throughout the range of wind speed. For
control strategy (2) (proposed controller), the operation is
very close to the value obtained by method (1). There are some
lower values due to the proposed controller requiring longer
response time as compare to anemometer method. For control
strategies (2) to (5), the length of sampling time and the number
of wind speed operating points have a measurable effect on the
capability of the maximum power point tracking controller to
operate the wind turbine at maximum value. As a result,
average maximum reduces as the length of sampling time
increases and number of operating point reduces. From these
characteristic comparisons, the maximum power capturing
capabilities for control strategies (2) to (5) can only be im-
proved by increasing the sampling rate and more operating
points. This, however, demands a higher order of statistical
models, a detailed WECS mathematical model in the control
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 19, NO. 2, JUNE 2004
Fig. 15. Energy comparison between different control schemes.
system, and complex computation. All of these requirements
will add to the cost and complexity of the controller.
During the whole simulation, the power that the wind turbine
feeds into the grid is integrated over time. The value at the end
of the simulation is the energy that the wind turbine fed into
the grid during the simulated time (10 min), and it includes the
consequences of the dynamical response of the different control
concepts regarding energy. The maximum power available from
the wind is obtained by converting the wind speed over the pe-
riod to maximum power using the maximum power versus wind
speed characteristic obtained from Fig. 5. The integrated value
of the maximum power at the end of the simulation is the max-
imum energy available from the wind with this WECS. As the
aim of this study is to show the differences between the strate-
gies, the simplest method (6-Fixed voltage) is taken as a refer-
ence. All energy captured of the other concepts is normalized
to the energy capture of this strategy under the same circum-
stances. Fig. 15 shows the total energy captured by each control
TAN AND ISLAM: OPTIMUM CONTROL STRATEGIES IN ENERGY CONVERSION OF PMSG WIND TURBINE SYSTEM WITHOUT SENSORS
strategy, and the percentage of gain in energy capture over the
baseline of constant voltage.
As shown in Fig. 15, the proposed controller shows an in-
crease in energy gain over strategy (3) to (6) and close to the
value obtained by strategy (1). Taking into account of aerody-
namic, mechanical, and electrical losses, the simulation results
shows that the maximum energy extracted by the WECS is about
60–65% of the energy available from the wind. The WECS with
anemometer MPPT can obtain about 56–63% of energy avail-
able from the wind. The proposed variable voltage strategy can
obtain 55–61% of energy available from the wind and has a
maximum of 9–11% gain over the constant voltage strategy.
This is due to the high inertia of the blades and PMSG and the
response time of the CCI inverter. The percentage of maximum
energy extracted by the WECS can be increased by reducing the
inertia of the blade and turbine [18]. This will allow the wind tur-
bine to react faster to the change of the wind speed. Comparing
the references for other optimal wind power extraction control
strategies, the control strategies in simulation have the closest
result with [5], which is a variable-speed system providing 16%
more energy than the fixed speed option.
V. CONCLUSION
This paper presents modeling and simulation result of a
prototype variable-speed sensorless WECS. The sensorless PD
controller concept uses the frequency and control loop to
determine the optimal operating dc voltage of a current-con-
trolled inverter by controlling the modulation index of the
PWM inverter. As a result, the overall energy captured will
be optimized over a wide range of wind speeds. The has
shown to be at its maximum as the wind speed varies. With the
dynamic behavior of the different control concepts, we are able
to study most of the system characteristics, such as the tracking
performance and overall energy capture capability. Based
on these simulations, we compared the performances of five
different controller strategies. This study showed that all four
variable voltage strategies have improved the maximum power
point tracking capability without significantly increasing the
complexity of the control. Maintaining a simple and effective
controller was an important factor in the design process to
ensure easy implementation for the industrial applications.
The proposed open-loop controller was easy to implement and
required very little computation. The controller design does
not required accurate uncertain parameters from the PMSG
WECS. The knowledge of the WECS maximum power versus
dc voltage characteristic is the only information required for
tuning the fixed gains controller. The next step is to see if the
cost of the proposed control strategy can be paid back in terms
of increased output. In addition to the interference of wind
turbine protection mechanisms (static pitch and yaw control),
active and reactive power control on the voltage strategies must
be investigated.
REFERENCES
[1] R. Chedid, F. Mrad, and M. Basma, “Intelligent control of class of wind
energy conversion systems,” IEEE Trans. Energy Conversion, vol. 14,
pp. 1597–1604, Dec. 1999.
[2] A. Z. Mohamed, M. N. Eskander, and F. A. Ghali, “Fuzzy logic control
based maximum power tracking of wind energy system,” Renewable
Energy, vol. 23, no. 2001, pp. 235–245.
399
[3] R. Hoffmann and P. Mutschler, “The influence of control strategies on
energy capture of wind turbines,” in Proc. 35th IAS Annu. Meeting World
Conf. Ind. Applicat. Elect. Energy, Piscataway, NJ, 2000, pp. 886–893.
[4] D. Goodfellow, G. A. Smith, and G. Gardner, Control Strategies for Vari-
able Speed Wind Energy Recovery. Leicester, U.K.: Univ. Leicester,
1987.
[5] V. H. Casanova and L. L. Freris, “Dynamic and control of wind en-
ergy conversion system,” in Proc. 5th Congr. Brasileiro de Automatica,
Campina Grande, Brazil, 1984.
[6] M. Idan, M. Lior, and G. Shaviv, “A robust controller for a novel variable
speed wind turbine transmission,” J. Solar Energy Eng., vol. 120, pp.
247–252, Nov. 1998.
[7] D. S. Zinger and E. Muljadi, “Annualized wind energy improvement
using variable speeds,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Applicat., vol. 33, pp.
1444–1447, Nov./Dec. 1997.
[8] L. L. Freris, Wind Energy Conversion System. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall, 1990.
[9] A. J. G. Westlake, J. R. Bumby, and E. Spooner, “Damping the power-
angle oscillations of a permanent-magnet synchronous generator with
particular reference to wind applications,” Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng., Elect.
Power Appl., vol. 143, no. 3, pp. 269–280, May 1996.
[10] B. S. Borowy and Z. M. Salameh, “Dynamic response of a stand-alone
wind energy conversion system with battery energy storage to a wind
gust,” IEEE Trans. Energy Conversion, vol. 12, pp. 73–78, Mar. 1997.
[11] J. Y. Chen and C. V. Nayar, “A low speed, high torque, direct cou-
pled permanent magnet generator for wind turbine application,” in Proc.
Solar—Australian New Zealand Solar Energy Soc., 1997, pp. 1–6.
[12] P. C. Krause, O. Wasynczuk, and S. D. Sudhoff, Analysis of Electric
Machinery. New York: IEEE Press, 1994.
[13] N. Mohan, T. M. Undeland, and W. P. Robbins, Power Electronic: Con-
verter, Application and Design. New York: Wiley, 1995.
[14] L. J. Borle, M. S. Dymond, and C. V. Nayar, “Development and testing
of a 20 kW grid interactive photovoltaic power conditioning system in
Western Australia,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Applicat., vol. 33, pp. 502–508,
Mar./Apr. 1997.
[15] L. J. Borle and C. V. Nayar, “Zero average current error control power
flow for AC-DC power converter,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol.
10, pp. 725–732, Nov. 1995.
[16] P. Panikar, “Wind speed prediction using statistical methods,” in Proc.
Inter-University Postgraduate Elect. Eng. Symp., Perth, Western Aus-
tralia, 2000.
[17] P. Panikar, M. S. Rahman, S. M. Islam, and T. L. Pryor, “Adaptive control
strategies in wind diesel hybrids system,” in Proc. Australasian Univ.
Power Eng. Conf., Perth, Western Australia, 2000, pp. 295–301.
[18] E. Muljadi and C. P. Butterfield, “Pitch-controlled variable-speed wind
turbine generation,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Applicat., vol. 37, pp. 240–246,
Jan./Feb. 2001.
Kelvin Tan (S’01) received the B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from
Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia, in 1997. He is currently pur-
suing the Ph.D. degree in renewable systems at the Centre for Renewable Energy
and Sustainable Technologies Australia (CRESTA), Perth.
Syed Islam (SM’93) received the B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical
power engineering from Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Aus-
tralia, in 1979, 1983, and 1988, respectively.
Currently, he is a Professor and Head of the Department of Electrical En-
gineering at Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia. He is also the
Deputy Director of the Centre for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Tech-
nologies Australia, Perth, and Managing Editor of the International Journal of
Renewable Energy Engineering. He has published many research papers in the
area of electric power engineering including many in the IEEE. His current re-
search interests include power quality, energy efficiency, and hybrid renewable
energy systems.
Dr. Islam is a member of the IEE. He is the recipient of the 1999 IEEE/PES
prestigious T. Burke Haye’s outstanding Faculty Recognition Award and was
the General Chair for the 2001 Australasian Universities Power Engineering
(AUPEC) Conference.