Wind turbine emulation for intelligent microgrid development

Wind is being aggressively pursued as a potential source of renewable electric power. However, the principal difficulty when integrating wind power into the utility is one of controls. Regulating a power system to provide balance between source and load is challenging when a significant amount of generation is produced by variable sources. This has sparked a wave of research into the development of controls for microgrids with high renewable penetration levels. However, generating repeatable experiments for a system that includes wind power is not straightforward. In this paper, a simple methodology for implementing an 11-kW wind turbine emulator without a torque sensor is presented for supporting microgrid research. In particular, the direct-torque-control feature of a commercial induction motor drive with brake resistor is used, and the torque reference is generated using an industrial computer. Simulation results are presented.