State-Space Modeling and Performance Analysis of Variable-Speed Wind Turbine Based on a Model Predictive Control Approach

Abstract

Advancements in wind energy technologies have led wind turbines from fixed speed to variable speed operation. This paper introduces an innovative version of a variable-speed wind turbine based on a model predictive control (MPC) approach. The proposed approach provides maximum power point tracking (MPPT), whose main objective is to capture the maximum wind energy in spite of the variable nature of the wind’s speed. The proposed MPC approach also reduces the constraints of the two main functional parts of the wind turbine: the full load and partial load segments. The pitch angle for full load and the rotating force for the partial load have been fixed concurrently in order to balance power generation as well as to reduce the operations of the pitch angle. A mathematical analysis of the proposed system using state-space approach is introduced. The simulation results using MATLAB/SIMULINK show that the performance of the wind turbine with the MPC approach is improved compared to the traditional PID controller in both low and high wind speeds.