PEDS2009

The Design of Control System and Power

Conditioning System for a 25-kW Active-control
Based Wind Turbine System
Yung-Ruei Chang, Chen-Min Chan, and Chin-Jen Chang
Engineering Technology & Facility Operation Division
Institute of Nuclear Energy Research
Taoyuan, Taiwan (R.O.C.)

Abstract—This paper focuses on the design and technical regulate the optimal pitching angle for MPPT (Maximize
specifications of 25-kW PMSG wind turbine system, INER-C25A, Power Point Tracking). The electric power generated from a
which has been undergoing field-testing since March, 2009. Three PM generator is delivered to the utility grid through a 36 kW
major parts of INER-C25A including the infrastructure of grid-tied inverter with an output voltage of 220 V/380 V (60
control system, wind turbine control strategy, and the power Hz, 3φ). The development of the control system is not only
conditioning system will be illustrated in this paper. With the beneficial for the next generation of a new 150-kW wind
LabVIEW (Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engineering turbine system, but also for establishing the design capability
Workbench) graphical interface software tool, the embedded for the control system of large wind turbine system in Taiwan.
control system, the CompactRIO system with NI I/O modules,
In this paper, Section II describes the hardware and the control
links sensors and drivers of sub-systems (Pitch, Yaw, and Brake)
to obtain instant data and precisely control these sub-systems. By
strategy of the wind turbine control system. A back-to-back
analyzing all sensor signals such as wind direction/speed, rotor power conditioning system with MPPT is illustrated in Section
speed, and temperature, the control system drives the wind III. Section IV depicts a 200-kW ground test platform and field
turbine to trace the wind direction and to regulate the optimal test results. Section V gives some conclusions and future works.
pitching angle for MPPT (Maximize Power Point Tracking). The
electric power generated from a PM generator is delivered to the
utility grid by a 36 kW grid-tied inverter with an output voltage
of 220 V/380 V (60 Hz, 3φ). The development of the control
system is not only beneficial for the next generation of a new 150-
kW wind turbine system, but also for establishing the design
capability for the control system of large wind turbine system in
Taiwan.

Keywords-Active-control; Wind Turbine System; Embedded

Control System; Grid-tied Inverter.

I. INTRODUCTION
Based on system integration capability in nuclear
technology, the Institute of Nuclear Energy Research (INER)
has turned his research direction from nuclear area into
renewable energy area since 2005. On March 2009, a 25-kW
PMSG wind turbine system (INER-C25A) was set up
successfully at the energy park of INER (as shown in Fig. 1) Figure 1. A 25-kW PMSG wind turbine system (INER-C25A) at the energy
park of INER.
and has been undergoing field-testing. This paper focuses on
the design and technical specification of INER-C25A including
the infrastructure of control system, the wind turbine control II. THE INFRASTRUCTURE OF CONTROL SYSTEM
strategy, and the power conditioning system. With the
This section introduces the safety and control design of the
LabVIEW (Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engineering
INER-C25A wind turbine system, which is expected to fulfill
Workbench) graphical interface software tool, the embedded
the requirements of IEC-WT-01 Section 12.2.2 under the
control system, the CompactRIO system with NI I/O modules,
design compliance of IEC-61400-2. The main hardware
links sensors and drivers of sub-systems (Pitch, Yaw, and
infrastructure of the control system is as shown in Fig. 2. A
Brake) to obtain instant data and precisely control these sub-
control strategy is well developed based on this infrastructure.
systems. By analyzing all sensor signals such as wind direction,
The purpose of the control strategy is to harvest maximum
wind speed, rotor speed, and temperature, the control system
wind energy and, meanwhile, to control the action of
drives the wind turbine to trace the wind direction and to

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Win d Di re cti o n
Limit Switches Ov er Oil
Tem per ature Wind Speed Pitch Yaw (2) T emp.
( 3) Encoder Encoder Monitoring
Pressure Blade
Encoder
F liter Low PC
(4) Oil

Anemometer
CRIO- 9211 CRIO- 9201 CRIO- CRIO -940 1
cRIO-9 211 CRIO-9401
9401 CRI O-94 01

RT-Con
RT-Contro
troler
ler
FPGA
FPGAcRIO-9102
cRIO-9104 (or cRIO- 9004
PCI cRIO-9 002
Bus
Et her net
CRIO-9 263
cRIO -94 01
CRI O-94 81
cRIO -9401 Hydraulic
PC PLC

Pitch Yaw Relay Relay

( 2) ( 2)
CompactRIO
Shaft Ya w
Brake Br ake

Figure 2. Control and Monitoring Architecture of INER-C25A.

Limit Switch
Encoder

Abnormal
System C ondition
Re leased
Initialization Figure 5. Laboratory installation to authenticate each critical sensor.
System Startup

Va ve< Vcut-in V ave > V cut-in

Abnormal (Note-1)
Normal Enables「Abnormal Flag」
Operation Abnormal Normal Stop
Vave < Vrated V ave > Vrated
(Note-1) A permanent resident progrm enables
Rated Power frequently check the following abnorml events :
Operation Event 1: Controller Abnormal Signals
Event 2: Position Abnormal Signals
V ave< Vcut-out Vav e > Vcut-out
Event 3: Loss of Grid Power
System Event 4: Temperature Abnormal Signals
Idling Event 5: Rotor Over Speed Signals
Event 6: Reserved .
Event 99: User Interuption
Exceptional
Normal Procedure Procedure

Figure 6. The prototype and stator structure of the 25-kW PM generator.

Emergency
Normal Stop Typhoon Manual
Stop
(Scram + Break)
(+Break) Mode Idling automatic mode. In some certain circumstances, such as
typhoon, maintenance, and emergency, the control system can
be switched to manual mode to make wind turbine operate at
System
Initialization
Reinitializing the exceptional procedure for secure operations or
maintenances. The control and monitoring architecture uses the
CompactRIO hardware [1] and the LabVIEW graphical
Figure 3. The control flow diagram of Normal Procedure and Exceptional
Procedure. software as the control interface (Fig. 4), and enables INER-
C25A to receive all sensor signals including wind direction,
wind speed, rotor speed, and temperature, and to appropriately
control the subsystems to response to highly changeable wind
conditions for obtaining the maximum wind energy [2]. Fig. 5
shows the primary parts of the control system.

III. POWER CONDITIONING SYSTEM

In this section, we introduce the 25-kW PM generator and
the 36-kW three-phase grid-tied power conditioning system of
INER-C25A.
For the PM generator (Fig. 6), the specification is as
followings: 1) outer rotor structure, 2) 42 poles and 45 slots, 3)
rated speed: 300 rpm, 4) line-to-line output voltage: 380 Vrms,
5) 350 kg. The efficiency of this PM generator is 93.4% at
rated speed of 300 rpm. Fig. 7 shows the efficiency curves
Figure 4. User interface for Normal Procedure. under different load conditions. Most of the efficiency is more
than 91% when the speed is above half of the rated speed.
mechanical subsystems including blade pitch, yaw and brake,
to precisely response to the operation conditions. Two A survey of recent literatures [3][4] shows many three-
procedures (Fig. 3) are specified for the wind turbine control— phase grid-tied back-to-back converters with MPPT algorithm
Normal procedure (automatic mode) and Exceptional were proposed. In addition, low voltage ride through (LVRT)
procedure (manual mode), these procedures serve as the basis technology [5] even for zero voltage ride through (ZVRT)
of system operation. Normally, the system is placed at technology are also actively under development. In the power

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95 MPPT Curve

v=7

90
Efficiency (% )

v=7.5
25
v=8

Power (kW)
v=8.5
85
v=9

v=10
80
Load
MPP
30 k W
25 k W
20 k W
75
0 50 100 15 0 2 00 25 0 3 00 35 0

Speed (rpm)
50 100

Figure 7. The efficiency curve of 25-kW PM generator under different load Speed (RPM)
condition.
Figure 11. The MPPT control curve which is obtained from CFD calculation
results.

DSP duty-control register to the duty of PWM, Gid(s) is the

plant transfer function, and Hi(s) is the gain of sensor circuits.
ac/dc dc/dc dc/ac
The overall simulation result [7] is as shown in Fig. 10. The
specification of main components in the power conditioning
system is as followings: 1) IGBT: Mitsubishi, CM299DY-24H,
200A, 1200V; 2) Rectifier: NELL, NKD90/16, 90 A, 1600 V;
3) Hall CT: LEM, HAS100-S, 100 A/4V; 4) DSP: Microchip,
dsPIC30F4011, 5) LC filter: 0.8 mH, 30 uF.

Ki
Gc ( s ) = K p + (1)
Figure 8. Schematics and product of the 36-kW three-tier three-phase grid- s
tied power conditioning system.

ug(t)
1
Iref Ierr vd (t) d Io Fm = (2)
++
rratio _ cmpr _ to _ d
+
- G c(s) Fm (s) Gid(s)

Ifb
Vdc
Hi(s) Gid ( s ) = (3)
R + sLi
Figure 9. Block diagram of control system of INER-C25A.

H i ( s ) = GCT _ ratio × G DSP _ gain (4)

The MPPT control curve (power v.s. rotor speed) strongly

depends on wind speeds and the aerodynamics of wind blades
[8]. Fig. 11 depicts the MPPT control curve which is obtained
from CFD calculation results under different wind speeds and
rotor speeds. Therefore, for appropriately matching the
characteristic between rotor speed and power converter, we use
Figure 10. Simulation result of power conditioning system.
a I-V curve (current v.s. voltage, as shown in Fig. 12) lookup
conditioning system of INER-C25A system, for cost down table for MPPT control strategy, where voltage is proportional
reason, we choose three tiers for power conversion (Fig. 8). to the generator rotor speed and current is proportional to the
The first tier is only a three-phase rectifier for ac/dc conversion. output power that we plan to extract by the power converter,
The second tier is a booster for regulating dc bus at 600V. The respectively.
last tier is a three-phase grid-tied dc/ac inverter. The closed-
loop control methodology of the compensator we chose is IV. GROUND TEST AND FIELD TEST RESULTS
voltage feed-forward and current-loop control [6]. The control To verify the performance and important design parameters
block diagram is as shown in Fig. 9, where, from (1) to (4), of the wind turbine before real field testing, a 200-kW ground
Gc(s) is the compensator, Fm(s) is the gain between the value of

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TABLE I. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTES
35
Output Current (A)

Rotor Vin-ph Pi Po PF Efficiency

30
Speed (V) (kW) (kW) (%)
25 (rpm)
20 109 80.3 1.23 0.54 0.439 43.90
15
145 105 2.56 1.83 0.715 71.48
182 131 4.64 3.79 0.817 81.68
10
218 155 7.76 6.78 0.874 87.37
5
255 180 12.1 10.7 0.884 88.43
0 291 203 17 15.1 0.888 88.82
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
326 226 22 19.8 0.912 90.00
Output Voltage (V) 361 247 27.1 24.8 0.951 92.50

Figure 12. I-V control curve corresponding to the MPPT control curve.

test platform (or Dyno) is built up at a machine shop of INER.

Once we have finished the assembling of wind turbine system Dyno Gear Shaft
Brake Gear
Controller Box Hub
excluding blades, we directly connect the rotor shaft of the Load Box
Generator
Bank
wind turbine system with this Dyno (Fig. 13) and then, perform
system functionalities and power performance tests. Different
from traditional ground test platforms which can only provide Torque
Meter Hydraulic
fixed rotor speed or fixed torque testing, our Dyno can provide
specific wind blade output behavior (rpm v.s. N-m) [9][10] Wind Turbine
with respect to different wind speeds calculated from CFD. The
output torque of the Dyno is set to be dependent on rotor speed 200 kW ground
at any presumed wind speed. It means the test platform can test platform
simulate variable wind speed conditions or even a gust.
Moreover, if we put different parameters calculated from CFD Figure 13. The 200-kW ground test platform.
according to different blade shapes, we can simulate the blade
output belonging to that blade shape. That means we can test
different kinds of blade performances in this ground test
platform. It is very helpful for the design and test of the MPPT
algorithm of power conditioning system under different wind
speed conditions. The control system of the test platform is
implemented by MATLAB/Simulink with a µ-box hardware
which can be easy for modeling and integrating dynamic
behaviors of blade and system. Fig. 14 illustrates the user
interface of the control system at fixed wind speed mode and
gust mode, respectively. In Fig. 14(b), we can see the power
conditioning system makes the wind turbine operate at red
points under variable wind speeds, which means it operates at
maximum power point and fits the MPPT control curve well. (a)

Fig. 15 shows the measured output voltage and current

curve under 9 kW, 18 kW, 27 kW, 36 kW load conditions by
connecting wind turbine system with the ground test platform.
The THD decreases with the increase of load. The THD and
the efficiency are 3.84% and 92.5% at rated power of 25 kW,
respectively. The experimental results of output power, power
factor, and system efficiency under different rotor speeds are
illustrated in Table 1.
Since March 2009, INER-C25A has practically been tested
at the energy park of INER. Fig. 16 depicts the measured data
of wind speed, generator power and rotor speed in Phase I of
field tests. It should be noted that the peak output power (b)
achieves 25 kW at 58 rpm rotor speed and around 10 m/s Figure 14. The user interface of the control system in (a) fixed wind speed
averaged wind speed, which broadly meets what we designed mode and (b) gust mode.
and expected. In Phase II of field tests, we will raise up the
rotor speed limitation to 65 rpm to perform larger power testing
and verify the functionality of the protection mechanism.

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Although, it still needs efforts to improve the system
performance and the THD reduction by adjusting the
parameters of the MPPT control curve, however, we believe
the success of INER-C25A brings us great encouragement and
experiences for designing and testing a wind turbine system in
the future.

V. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORKS

The control system and control strategy are the core
technologies for a wind turbine system. Different control (a) (b)
strategies should be applied on different wind turbine systems
to maximize wind energy extraction and to optimize the
protection of mechanical structures during operation. The
success of INER-C25A represents not only a well established
system design capability of medium size wind turbine in
Taiwan, but also the possibility for designing a large wind
turbine system in the future. In conclusion, the collection and
analysis of the operational data will be the focus in the near
future and therefore, how to design the effective way to
feedback these operational data into early design phase will be
the important issue in upcoming works. (c) (d)

Figure 15. The measured output voltage and current curve under (a) 9 kW, (b)
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