A Hydraulic Wind Power Transfer System: Operation and Modeling

Conventional wind power plants employ a variable speed gearbox to run a generator housed on top of a tower. A new topology can remove some of the weight from the tower and centralize the wind power generation. This new topology uses a hydraulic wind power transfer system to connect several wind turbines to the generation unit. This paper demonstrates a mathematical modeling of this wind power transfer technology and its dynamic behavior. The flow response, angular velocity, and pressure of the system obtained from the mathematical model are compared with test results to demonstrate the accuracy of the mathematical model. Several speed-step responses of the system obtained from the mathematical model demonstrate a close agreement with the results from the prototype of the hydraulic wind power transfer unit.