Wind turbine partial-load controllers have evolved from simple static nonlinear function implementations to more advanced dynamic controller structures. Such dynamic control schemes have the potential to improve power production performance in realistic environmental conditions and allow for a more granular trade-off between loads and energy capture. The control structure generally consists of a wind speed estimator (WSE) combined with a controller aiming to track the commanded tip-speed ratio (TSR) reference. The performance and resulting closed-loop system stability are however highly dependent on the accuracy of the internal model in the WSE-TSR tracking scheme. Therefore, developing learning algorithms to calibrate the internal model is of particular interest. Previous works have proposed such algorithms; however, they all rely on the availability of (rotor-effective) wind speed measurements. For the first time, this paper proposes an excitation-based learning algorithm that exploits the closed-loop dynamic structure of the WSE-TSR tracking scheme. This algorithm calibrates the internal model without the need for wind speed measurements. Analysis and simulations show that the proposed algorithm corrects for model uncertainties in the form of magnitude scaling errors under ideal constant and realistic turbulent wind conditions.@en

On-shore horizontal-axis wind turbines (HAWTs) provide a cost-effective solution for low carbon electricity generation. However, public acceptance is still a problem. A possible alternative to a HAWT is a vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT), which is more visually appealing and less noisy. Furthermore, the inherent omni-directionality of VAWTs makes them suitable for installation in urban environments where the turbulence levels are high, and the wind direction variations are significant. However, the variation with the azimuth angle of the blade-effective wind speed and the angle of attack makes VAWT performance difficult to predict. This study proposes a wind speed estimator for a VAWT to address this challenge and to exploit knowledge of the blade-effective wind speed for load reduction control strategies. An Unscented Kalman Filter is used to solve the blade-effective wind speed estimation problem and is applied to a realistic 1.5 m two-bladed H-Darrieus VAWT model, for which the aerodynamic characteristics are determined using an actuator cylinder model. The system performance is evaluated using different wind speed variation scenarios. Overall, good agreement between the reference and estimated blade-effective wind speed is found both in terms of trend and absolute values.

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Economic model predictive control (EMPC) has received increasing attention in the wind energy community due to its ability to trade-off economic objectives with ease. However, for wind turbine applications, inherent nonlinearities, such as from aerodynamics, pose difficulties in attaining a convex optimal control problem (OCP), by which real-time deployment is not only possible but also a globally optimal solution is guaranteed. A variable transformation can be utilized to obtain a convex OCP, where nominal variables, such as rotational speed, pitch angle, and torque, are exchanged with an alternative set in terms of power and energy. The ensuing convex EMPC (CEMPC) possesses linear dynamics, convex constraints, and concave economic objectives and has been successfully employed to address power control and tower fatigue alleviation. This work focuses on extending the blade loads mitigation aspect of the CEMPC framework by exploiting its individual pitch control (IPC) capabilities, resulting in a novel CEMPC-IPC technique. This extension is made possible by reformulating static blade and rotor moments in terms of individual blade aerodynamic powers and rotational kinetic energy of the drivetrain. The effectiveness of the proposed method is showcased in a mid-fidelity wind turbine simulation environment in various wind cases, in which comparisons with a basic CEMPC without load mitigation capability and a baseline IPC are made.

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Modern industrial wind turbine controllers for partial-load region control are becoming increasingly complex by progressively relying on modeled aerodynamic characteristics. These advanced turbine controllers generally consist of a combined wind speed estimator and tracking controller, allowing for a granular trade-off between energy capture maximization and (fatigue) load minimization. Because of the limited measurements available to the controller, the control scheme's internal model quality is of utmost importance in satisfying performance and stability requirements. Therefore, the calibration thereof is of particular interest. To date, little work has been performed on the direct calibration of the model information. This work proposes a data-driven iterative learning algorithm for calibrating the internal physical model parameters. The learning algorithm uses generally available closed-loop turbine measurements, complemented with an external measurement of the rotor effective wind speed (REWS), and is thereby largely nondisruptive. The algorithm is based on steady-state assumptions and performs iterative batch-wise updates of the internal control model toward convergence. As the algorithm corrects at the actual turbine operating point, short-term relocations of the turbine's operating point can be used to calibrate in a broader operational domain. Results show outstanding learning capabilities for an aerodynamically degraded wind turbine under realistic turbulent wind conditions. Moreover, a sensitivity study is performed to expose the algorithm's susceptibility to measurement errors, algorithm tuning, and the size of the data set.

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The combined wind speed estimator and tip-speed ratio (WSE–TSR) tracking wind turbine control scheme has seen recent and increased traction from the wind industry. The modern control scheme provides a flexible trade-off between power and load objectives. On the other hand, the Kω2 controller is often used based on its simplicity and steady-state optimality and is taken as a baseline here. This paper investigates the potential benefits of the WSE–TSR tracking controller compared to the baseline by analysis through a frequency-domain framework and by optimal calibration through a systematic procedure. A multi-objective optimisation problem is formulated for calibration with the conflicting objectives of power maximisation and torque fluctuation minimisation. The optimisation problem is solved by approximating the Pareto front based on the set of optimal solutions found by an explorative search. The Pareto fronts were obtained by mid-fidelity simulations with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) 5 MW turbine under turbulent wind conditions for calibration of the baseline and for increasing fidelities of the WSE–TSR tracking controller. Optimisation results show that the WSE–TSR tracking controller does not provide further benefits in energy capture compared to the baseline Kω2 controller. There is, however, a trade-off in torque control variance and power capture with control bandwidth. By lowering the bandwidth at the expense of generated power of 2 %, the torque actuation effort reduces by 80 % with respect to the optimal calibration corresponding to the highest control bandwidth.@en

The combined wind speed estimator and tip speed ratio (WSE-TSR) tracking control scheme is widely used to regulate power production for large-scale modern wind turbines. Although very effective, such an advanced control scheme, based on the prior model information, is highly dependent on external measurements. For partial-load region control, the only external information involved is commonly the measured rotor or generator speed. Inaccuracy in such sole measurement results in an unintended turbine operation and might lead to sub-optimal power production and instability. This paper presents a fault-tolerant control (FTC) method, which aims to eliminate the sensor fault effects for modern wind turbine systems. To fulfil this goal, an iterative learning scheme is proposed to detect and estimate the multiplicative sensor fault, on which an adaptive FTC law is formulated such that the effects of the sensor fault are eliminated. Case studies show that the proposed iterative learning FTC method performs well in detecting, estimating, and accommodating the sensor fault under realistic turbulent wind conditions. The advanced wind turbine controller can maintain its control performance even under faulty conditions, preventing further damage to other turbine components and allowing for continuous power production.

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The knowledge of the Effective wind speed (EWS) allows the designing of wind turbine controllers that regulate power production and reduce loads on turbine components. Traditional single-point measurements are known to suffer from high noise and poor correlation with the EWS. As an alternative to overcome these problems, EWS estimators can be designed. The main challenge is the high non-linearity of the wind speed influence on the drive-train dynamics. Therefore, an estimator based on the unscented Kalman filter (UKF) is proposed and compared against an extended Kalman filter (EKF) and the immersion and invariance (I&I) technique. Simulation results are provided and show the superior performances attained by the UKF. Furthermore, the usefulness of the estimated EWS is demonstrated by designing a sliding mode controller (SMC) that can track a desired power reference. In addition, the controller allows operating in sub-optimal conditions, where load reduction is attained at the expense of power maximization. The proposed estimator's and controller's performances are evaluated under wind farm wake conditions via high-fidelity simulations. The findings show that UKF can outperform the EKF and the controller can reduce loads, except under highly waked conditions.

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The estimation of the rotor effective wind speed is used in modern wind turbines to provide advanced power and load control capabilities. However, with the ever increasing rotor sizes, the wind field over the rotor surface shows a higher degree of spatial variation. A single effective wind speed estimation therefore limits the attainable levels of load mitigation, and the estimation of the blade effective wind speed (BEWS) might present opportunities for improved load control. This letter introduces two novel BEWS estimator approaches: a proportional-integral-notch (PIN) estimator based on individual blade load measurements, and a Coleman estimator targeting the estimation in the nonrotating frame. Given the seeming disparities between these two estimators, the objective of this letter is to analyze the similarities between the approaches. It is shown that the PIN estimator, which is equivalent to the diagonal form of the Coleman estimator, is a simple but effective method to estimate the BEWS. The Coleman estimator, which takes the coupling effects between individual blades into account, shows a more well-behaved transient response than the PIN estimator.

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The wind turbine side-side tower motion is known to be lightly damped. One viable active damping solution is realized by deploying individual pitch control (IPC) such that counteracting blade forces are created to alleviate the tower fatigue loading caused by this motion. Existing IPC methods for side-side tower damping in the literature, such as linear quadratic regulator and lead-lag controller, cannot accommodate direct optimization and tradeoff tunings of the wind turbine economic performance. In this work, a novel side-side tower damping IPC strategy under a convex economic model predictive control (CEMPC) framework is therefore developed to address these challenges. The main idea of the framework lies in the variable transformation in power and energy terms to obtain linear dynamics and convex constraints, over which the economic performance of the wind turbine is maximized with a globally optimal solution in a receding horizon manner. The effectiveness of the proposed method is showcased in a high-fidelity simulation environment under both steady and turbulent wind cases. Lower fatigue damage on the side-side tower bending moment is attained with an acceptable level of pitch activities, negligible impact on the blade loads, and minor improvement on the power production.

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The current trend in the evolution of wind turbines is to increase their rotor size in order to capture more power. This leads to taller, slender and more flexible towers, which thus experience higher dynamical loads due to the turbine rotation and environmental factors. It is hence compelling to deploy advanced control methods that can dynamically counteract such loads, especially at tower positions that are more prone to develop cracks or corrosion damages. Still, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, little to no attention has been paid in the literature to load mitigation at multiple tower locations. Furthermore, there is a need for control schemes that can balance load reduction with optimization of power production. In this paper, we develop an Economic Model Predictive Control (eMPC) framework to address such needs. First, we develop a linear modal model to account for the tower flexural dynamics. Then we incorporate it into an eMPC framework, where the dynamics of the turbine rotation are expressed in energy terms. This allows us to obtain a convex formulation, that is computationally attractive. Our control law is designed to avoid the "turn-pike" behavior and guarantee recursive feasibility. We demonstrate the performance of the proposed controller on a 5MW reference WT model: the results illustrate that the proposed controller is able to reduce the tower loads at multiple locations, without significant effects to the generated power.@en

The Immersion and Invariance (II) wind speed estimator is a powerful and widely-used technique to estimate the rotor effective wind speed on horizontal axis wind turbines. Anyway, its global convergence proof is rather cumbersome, which hinders the extension of the method and proof to time-delayed and/or uncertain systems. In this letter, we illustrate that the circle criterion can be used as an alternative method to prove the global convergence of the II estimator. This also opens up the inclusion of time-delays and uncertainties. First, we demonstrate that the II wind speed estimator is equivalent to a torque balance estimator with a proportional correction term. As the nonlinearity in the estimator is sector bounded, the well-known circle criterion is applied to the estimator to guarantee its global convergence for time-delayed systems. By looking at the theoretical framework from this new perspective, this letter further proposes the addition of an integrator to the correction term to improve the estimator performance. Case studies show that the proposed estimator with an additional integral correction term is effective at wind speed estimation. Furthermore, its global convergence can be guaranteed by the circle criterion for time-delayed systems.

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Individual pitch control (IPC) is a well-known approach to reduce blade loads on wind turbines. Although very effective, IPC usually requires high levels of actuator activities, which significantly increases the pitch actuator duty cycle (ADC). This will subsequently result in an increase of the wear on the bearings of the blades and a decrease of the wind turbine reliability. An alternative approach to this issue is to reduce the actuator activities by incorporating the output constraints in IPC. In this paper, a fully data-driven IPC approach, which is called constrained subspace predictive repetitive control (cSPRC), is introduced. The output constraints can be explicitly considered in the control problem formulation via a model predictive control (MPC) approach. The cSPRC approach will actively produce the IPC action for the necessary load reduction when the blade loads violate the output constraints. In this way, actuator activities can be significantly reduced. Two kinds of scenarios are simulated to illustrate the unique applications of the proposed method: wake–rotor overlap and turbulent sheared wind conditions. Simulation results show that the developed cSPRC is able to account for the output constraints into the control problem formulation. Since the IPC action from cSPRC is only triggered to prevent violating the output constraints, the actuator activities are significantly reduced. This will help to reduce the pitch ADC, thus leading to an economical viable load control strategy. In addition, this approach allows the wind farm operator to design conservative bounds to guarantee the safety of the wind turbine control system.@en

Simulating a typhoon’s wind field via mesoscale models is important in terms of providing not only the guidelines for urban planning and onshore/offshore constructions, but also the provision of insight into the dynamics and thermodynamics of tropical cyclone systems. Therefore, the errors that are contained in simulation results were investigated in the present study, in association with large-scale meteorological patterns and localized wind conditions in the typhoon boundary layer. In detail, the full-set three-dimensional simulations of three typhoon cases were carried out in order to provide the typhoon wind fields that were required to compare with the observations that were obtained through land weather stations and offshore buoys. Although the reliability of typhoon simulations has been thoroughly investigated, the previous works mostly concentrated on the configurations and dynamic core of the model. The present study reveals, however, the influences of the characteristics of the specific weather system on the simulation’s results, which provides the foundation for the proposition of empirical corrections to improve the mesoscale simulation results of typhoon wind fields without updating the model’s algorithm.

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In the next decade, further digitalisation of the entire wind energy project lifecycle is expected to be a major driver for reducing project costs and risks. In this paper, a literature review on the challenges related to implementation of digitalisation in the wind energy industry is first carried out, showing that there is a strong need for new solutions that enable co-innovation within and between organisations. Therefore, a new collaboration method based on a digital ecosystem is developed and demonstrated. The method is centred around specific “challenges”, which are defined by “challenge providers” within a topical “space” and made available to participants via a digital platform. The data required in order to solve a particular “challenge” are provided by the “challenge providers” under the confidentiality conditions they specify. The method is demonstrated via a case study, the EDP Wind Turbine Fault Detection Challenge. Six submitted solutions using diverse approaches are evaluated. Two of the solutions perform significantly better than EDP’s existing solution in terms of Total Prediction Costs (saving up to €120,000). The digital ecosystem is found to be a promising solution for enabling co-innovation in wind energy in general, providing a number of tangible benefits for both challenge and solution providers.

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In recent years, industrial controllers for modern wind turbines have been designed as a combined wind speed estimator and tip-speed ratio (WSE-TSR) tracking control scheme. In contrast to the conventional and widely used Kω 2 torque control strategy, the WSE-TSR scheme provides flexibility in terms of controller responsiveness and potentially improves power extraction performance. However, both control schemes heavily rely on prior information about the aerodynamic properties of the turbine rotor. Using a control-oriented linear analysis framework, this paper shows that the WSE-TSR scheme is inherently ill-conditioned. The ill-conditioning is defined as the inability of the scheme to uniquely determine the wind speed from the product with other model parameters in the power balance equation. Uncertainty of the power coefficient contribution in the latter mentioned product inevitably leads to a biased effective wind speed estimate. As a consequence, in the presence of uncertainty, the real-world wind turbine deviates from the intended optimal operating point, while the controller believes that the turbine operates at the desired set-point. Simulation results confirm that inaccurate model parameters lead to biased estimates of the actual turbine operating point, causing sub-optimal power extraction efficiency.

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Individual Pitch Control (IPC) is an effective control strategy to mitigate the blade loads on large-scale wind turbines. Since IPC usually requires high pitch actuation, the safety constraints of the pitch actuator should be taken into account when designing the controller. This paper introduces a constrained Subspace Predictive Repetitive Control (SPRC) approach, which considers the limitation of blade pitch angle and pitch rate. To fulfill this goal, a model predictive control scheme is implemented in the fully data-driven SPRC approach to incorporate the physical limitations of the pitch actuator in the control problem formulation. An optimal control law subjected to constraints is then formulated so that future constraint violations are anticipated and prevented. Case studies show that the developed constrained SPRC reduces the pitch activities necessary to mitigate the blade loads when experiencing wind turbulence and abrupt wind gusts. More importantly, the approach allows the wind farm operator to design conservative bounds for the pitch actuator constraints that satisfies safety limitations, design specifications and physical restrictions. This will help to alleviate the cyclic fatigue loads on the actuators, increase the structural reliability and extend the lifespan of the pitch control system.

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Incipient fault detection plays a crucial role in preventing the occurrence of serious faults or failures in industrial processes. In most industrial processes, linear, and nonlinear relationships coexist. To improve fault detection performance, both linear and nonlinear features should be considered simultaneously. In this article, a novel hybrid linear-nonlinear statistical modeling approach for data-driven incipient fault detection is proposed by closely integrating recently developed canonical variate dissimilarity analysis and mixed kernel principal component analysis (MKPCA) using a serial model structure. Specifically, canonical variate analysis (CVA) is first applied to estimate the canonical variables (CVs) from the collected process data. Linear features are extracted from the estimated CVs. Then, the canonical variate dissimilarity (CVD) which quantifies model residuals in the CVA state-subspace is calculated using the estimated CVs. To explore the nonlinear features, the nonlinear principal components are extracted as nonlinear features through performing MKPCA on CVD. Fault detection indices are formed based on Hotelling's T2 as well as Q statistics from the extracted linear and nonlinear features. Moreover, kernel density estimation is utilized to determine the control limits. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by the comparisons with other relevant methods via simulations based on a closed-loop continuous stirred-tank reactor process.

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Currently, the offshore wind turbine has become a hot research area in the wind energy industry. Among different offshore wind turbines, floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) can harvest abundant wind energy in deepwater areas. However, the harsh working environment will dramatically increase the maintenance cost and downtime of FOWTs. Wind turbine fault diagnosis is being regarded as an indispensable system for maintenance issues. Owing to the complexity of FOWT, it imposes an enormous challenge for effective fault diagnosis. This paper develops a novel FOWT fault diagnosis method based on a stacked denoising autoencoder (SDAE). First, a sliding window technique is adopted for time-series data to preserve temporal information. Then, SDAE is employed to extract the features from high-dimensional data. Based on the extracted features from SDAE, a classifier using multilayer perceptrons (MLP) is developed to determine the health status of the FOWT. To verify the performance of the proposed method, a FOWT simulation benchmark based on the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) FAST simulator is employed. Results show the superior performance of the proposed method by comparison with other relevant methods.

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In this article, a novel data-driven fault diagnosis method by combining deep canonical variate analysis and Fisher discriminant analysis (DCVA-FDA) is proposed for complex industrial processes. Inspired by the recently developed deep canonical correlation analysis, a new nonlinear canonical variate analysis (CVA) called DCVA is first developed by incorporating deep neural networks into CVA. Based on DCVA, a residual generator is designed for the fault diagnosis process. FDA is applied in the feature space spanned by residual vectors. Then, a Bayesian inference classifier is performed in the reduced dimensional space of FDA to label the class of process data. A continuous stirred-tank reactor and an industrial benchmark of the Tennessee Eastman process are carried out to test the performance of DCVA-FDA fault diagnosis. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed DCVA-FDA fault diagnosis is able to significantly improve the fault diagnosis performance when compared to other methods also examined in this article.

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Individual pitch control (IPC) is an effective and widely used strategy to mitigate blade loads in wind turbines. However, conventional IPC fails to cope with blade and actuator faults, and this situation may lead to an emergency shutdown and increased maintenance costs. In this paper, a fault-tolerant individual pitch control (FTIPC) scheme is developed to accommodate these faults in floating offshore wind turbines (FOWTs), based on a Subspace Predictive Repetitive Control (SPRC) approach. To fulfill this goal, an online subspace identification paradigm is implemented to derive a linear approximation of the FOWT system dynamics. Then, a repetitive control law is formulated to attain load mitigation under operating conditions, both in healthy and faulty conditions. Since the excitation noise used for the online subspace identification may interfere with the nominal power generation of the wind turbine, a novel excitation technique is developed to restrict excitation at specific frequencies. Results show that significant load reductions are achieved by FTIPC, while effectively accommodating blade and actuator faults and while restricting the energy of the persistently exciting control action.

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