A comparison of the performance of constant speed HAWT´s

Many medium/large scale grid-connected constant speed up-wind horizontal axis wind turbines have the ability to vary the pitch angle of the rotor blades or part of the blades. This capability is frequently used to regulate the wind turbine. There are some configurations of wind turbine for which pitch regulation is very effective and some for which it is not successful. The purpose of this paper is to quantify the dependence of the effectiveness of the pitch regulation system. For a 300 kW wind turbine, equivalent one, two and three-bladed rotors are designed for both full-span and tip regulation. The performance is assessed for each choice of rotor for various drive train characteristics, control system characteristics and wind speeds