Emulation of a 1.5MW wind turbine with a DC motor

In order to provide a testing environment for generator control strategies, a wind turbine emulator was developed. First, a mathematical model was developed for the a 1.5MW wind turbine generator based on available modeling data. Using this data a function relating maximum power output and wind speed was developed along with a one-mass model of the turbine. The model was implemented in a software simulation along with controllers for a DC motor acting as the wind turbine and a dynamometer acting as the generator. The software simulation was implemented in LabVIEW and read in a data file containing high sample rate (20 Hz) wind speed data, calculated the optimal power from that wind speed, and generated control signals for the DC motor and dynamometer. The effectiveness of the controller was found by calculating the mean-square error between the optimal power calculated by the simulation turbine model and the actual power produced by the DC motor/dynamometer combination. Two 800 second wind speed data files were used as test inputs for the emulator: a low-speed low-frequency wind profile and a turbulent or varying-speed wind profile. The results of the controller development using these two wind speeds show that the turbine inertia is a significant factor in following the optimal power output of a wind turbine. The time constant of the generator speed-tracking function specified in the modeling data also plays a significant role in how quickly the system can respond to changes in wind speed.