Wind turbine emulator using three-phase IM controlled through an adaptive reactive power estimator fed by soft-VSI topology

Purpose

The purpose of this paper aims to design a robust wind turbine emulator (WTE) based on a three-phase induction motor (3PIM).

Design/methodology/approach

The 3PIM is driven by a soft voltage source inverter (VSI) controlled by a specific space vector modulation. By adjusting the appropriate vector sequence selection, the desired VSI output voltage allows a real wind turbine speed emulation in the laboratory, taking into account the wind profile, static and dynamic behaviors and parametric variations for theoretical and then experimental analysis. A Mexican hat profile and a sinusoidal profile are therefore used as the wind speed system input to highlight the electrical, mechanical and electromagnetic system response.

Findings

The simulation results, based on relative error data, show that the proposed reactive power control method effectively estimates the flux and the rotor time constant, thus ensuring an accurate trajectory tracking of the wind speed for the wind emulation application.

Originality/value

The proposed architecture achieves its results through the use of mathematical theory and WTE topology combine with an online adaptive estimator and Lyapunov stability adaptation control methods. These approaches are particularly relevant for low-cost or low-power alternative current (AC) motor drives in the field of renewable energy emulation. It has the advantage of eliminating the need for expensive and unreliable position transducers, thereby increasing the emulator drive life. A comparative analysis was also carried out to highlight the online adaptive estimator fast response time and accuracy.