On the impact of information access delays on remote control of a wind turbine

It is important to reduce the impact of renewable production in the power grid by means of control, due to increased frequency deviations and imbalances caused by these assets. Cost efficient deployment of asset control frequently results in a distributed control architecture where the controller is connected via a communication network to the sensors and actuators on the asset. Such a distributed control scheme may be implemented over a communication network that introduces delay and possibly also message loss. In this paper, we look at the impact of such an imperfect communication network on a wind farm controller. The controller attempts to reduce fatigue on the wind turbine, which is used as a measure of the controller performance. Via simulation analysis, we show the degradation of the controller performance when subject to network delays. We analyse different access strategies useable by the controller to gather sensor information and and quantitatively characterize the impact of these access strategies on the controller performance.