Developing the process in matching a wind turbine system to attain optimal performance

Abstract

The objective of this article is to develop the procedure in the matching of turbine blades and generator to increase the efficiency of a wind turbine. Hydrodynamic simulation of turbine blades and the logic setting of the controller are always focused on obtaining maximum power from the turbine system. Research on the matching of the two systems, turbine blades and the generator, is rare. If turbine blades are not initially well matched with the generator, the optimal design of the turbine blades to reach peak performance will not be realized, and the controller will be unable to increase the power capture. Thus, the matching problem is worthy of being discussed. In this article, the efficiency of the wind turbine system is increased by determining the optimal constant voltage mode of the generator. As the optimal constant voltage mode is selected, the characteristics of the operating points, such as tip speed ratio, revolutions per minute, blade torque, and efficiency, can be identified by the crossover point of the T (torque)– N (r/min) curves of the turbine blades and the generator. A horizontal upwind turbine is treated as the study case here. It is suggested that the tip speed ratio value calculated by the determined revolutions per minute should be located in the high-efficiency region of efficiency curves of the turbine blades, but not in the steep-slope region of the selected constant voltage mode of the generator. The results show that, if the two systems operate well, the final output power at a low wind speed of 4–5 m/s will be increased by 65%–44%, and at a high wind speed of 10–12 m/s, it will be increased by 3%–5%.