Efficiency analysis of power converters for urban wind turbine applications

The use of wind energy in urban contexts, for a number of small power applications, is of greater and greater interest. The urban environment is characterised by multidirectional winds with a wide speed range, therefore it is necessary that the generation system is capable of delivering power in a wide range of operating conditions. For this reason it is of great interest to determine which power converter is more suitable for a small urban wind application. In this paper the power losses of three of the most used power converter topologies are calculated. Also the output power and the efficiency are compared in a wide range of the wind turbine operation including the extreme overspeed range.