Output Power Leveling of a Wind Generation System Using Inertia of a Wind Turbine

Abstract

Wind energy conversion systems have become important in the research of renewable energy sources. This is in no small part due to the rapid advances in the size of wind generators as well as the development of power electronics and their applicability in wind energy extraction. However, wind energy has a drawback of having only 1/800 (gm per cubic cm) density as compared to that of water energy. Wind energy does not remain constant and wind turbine output is proportional to the cube of wind speed, which causes the generated power of the wind turbine generator (WTG) to fluctuate. In this paper, a technique is proposed for output power leveling of a wind generation system. Wind turbine blades have a large inertia compared to the inertia of a generator. The inertia of the rotor behaves like an inductor in an electrical circuit. It helps smooth the wind turbine output power, stores energy during acceleration, and restores energy during deceleration. The effectiveness of output power leveling control is verified by simulations for the wind power generation system.