J. Gonzalez Silva
Please Note
11 records found
1
High penetration of wind energy is pushing wind farms (WFs) to offer grid support capabilities, such as active power tracking. One of the main challenges in active power tracking for WFs is the interaction of wind turbines (WTs) through their wakes. This reduces the available wind in downstream WTs, leading them to saturation, while also affecting structural loading. With the increasing number of WTs in individual WFs, the computational and communication complexity of implementing centralized control architectures grows, posing challenges for real-world applications. In this article, we present a novel distributed control approach for active power tracking for WFs, namely multirate consensus-based distributed control (MCDC). The MCDC is designed to ensure that tracking errors caused by WT saturation are equally compensated throughout the WF, while only requiring local information exchanges between WTs. Furthermore, the proposed controller ensures that WT aerodynamic loading is balanced across the WF in a distributed manner. Finally, the overall power reference is distributed via a leader–follower consensus algorithm, resulting in a fully distributed approach. Our control approach facilitates the WF modularity and sparsity, which reduces the costs associated with control design and its applicability. Throughout this article, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed MCDC through high-fidelity simulations, presenting performance comparable to the centralized control.
Wind farm control strategies can be implemented to mitigate these wake effects and optimize wind farm power generation. In scenarios requiring on-demand response, such as those explored in this thesis, wind turbines are leveraged to provide flexibility, constrained by their maximum power availability. The power delivery of wind power plants upon request is facilitated by a closed-loop wind farm controller, providing active power control at fast timescales. Active power control involves adjusting the resource's active power to assist power grid operators in balancing energy supply and demand, thereby improving energy security.
Our proposed closed-loop control solution provides superior response capabilities by
compensating for reduced power availability, ultimately enhancing the reliability of on-demand power generation.
The wind variability across turbines, intensified by wake effects, contributes not only to attaining fluctuations in power generation but also to fluctuations in structural loads on the turbines. Amplified by wake-induced turbulence, this structural load variability across turbines leads to uneven degradation of turbine components over the long term. In offshore scenarios, where accessibility is limited and maintenance operations must be minimized due to higher costs compared to onshore counterparts, controlling turbines to prolong their lifetime is of significant interest. In this thesis, this aspect is addressed at both the wind farm and wind turbine levels.
At the farm level, we propose that farms fulfilling grid energy demands must also balance the aerodynamic forces of their turbines to evenly distribute structural degradation among them.
This can be achieved without compromising the power generation when the turbines operate below their maximum energy extraction capacity. We have demonstrated that by implementing a real-time feedback loop, it is feasible to balance aerodynamic loads while meeting wind farm energy demands, albeit limited by wind availability. Moreover, we have demonstrated that balancing aerodynamic forces is advantageous for active power control in a wind farm affected by wake effects, compared to simply distributing power requests uniformly.
At the wind turbine level, we introduced two wind turbine controllers designed to individually restrict real-time aerodynamic loads as a surrogate of structural loads in turbine components. These controllers are referred to as load-limiting controllers. The first load-limiting controller employs an optimal control approach. The operator can impose structural load constraints, using a convex model predictive control for power tracking. The second controller, which is more practical, utilizes a switching mechanism with integral control that allows the operator to prioritize a structural load setpoint over a power demand setpoint. This prioritization aims to reinforce structural safety in situations where turbines are compromised from their design conditions. This could be a consequence of numerous factors, such as unpredictable degradation, installation issues, vessel collisions, and others.
As wind turbines prove to be a viable, reliable, and eco-friendly energy source, new wind farm projects are becoming more ambitious, incorporating a larger number of turbines than ever before. Additionally, there is a substantial growth in wind turbine installations within existing wind farms. This growth in the number of turbines poses an implementation challenge for wind farm control systems. Similar challenges have been encountered in controlling other large-scale systems with collective goals, where agents must instead make decisions based on partial information due to communication limitations in processing or transmission.
Anticipating this implementation challenge, we transition from a centralized to a distributed wind farm control solution. Taking advantage of the time scale inherent in typical wind farm controller implementations, we exchange information with neighboring turbines rather than a central workstation. Our aim, in particular, is not to gather partial information but to achieve consensus across the entire farm. However, our control methodology has a negative implication - the addition of delays - which is carefully examined by the derived stability condition for the design and is assessed through simulations. Notwithstanding these delays, the proposed solution is fully distributed and has been demonstrated to be both simple and effective, facilitating the application of our control solutions in large-scale wind farms.
Lastly, we validate our wind farm control solutions through experiments conducted with scaled wind turbines in full-wake conditions. In this way, we verify the benefits of our control solutions not only through high-fidelity simulations but also through real-world experimentation.
The work presented in this thesis emphasizes the importance of wind turbine controllers capable of offering demanded power to the grid while enhancing reliability in power delivery and addressing structural and maintenance concerns. We introduce closed-loop wind farm controllers designed to handle these challenges. Furthermore, we expand the implementation through a distributed approach on one front, while on the other front, we validate the solutions by means of experiments. The findings from this research contribute to the efficient operation of future wind farms by employing feedback control strategies across clusters of wind turbines. ...
Wind farm control strategies can be implemented to mitigate these wake effects and optimize wind farm power generation. In scenarios requiring on-demand response, such as those explored in this thesis, wind turbines are leveraged to provide flexibility, constrained by their maximum power availability. The power delivery of wind power plants upon request is facilitated by a closed-loop wind farm controller, providing active power control at fast timescales. Active power control involves adjusting the resource's active power to assist power grid operators in balancing energy supply and demand, thereby improving energy security.
Our proposed closed-loop control solution provides superior response capabilities by
compensating for reduced power availability, ultimately enhancing the reliability of on-demand power generation.
The wind variability across turbines, intensified by wake effects, contributes not only to attaining fluctuations in power generation but also to fluctuations in structural loads on the turbines. Amplified by wake-induced turbulence, this structural load variability across turbines leads to uneven degradation of turbine components over the long term. In offshore scenarios, where accessibility is limited and maintenance operations must be minimized due to higher costs compared to onshore counterparts, controlling turbines to prolong their lifetime is of significant interest. In this thesis, this aspect is addressed at both the wind farm and wind turbine levels.
At the farm level, we propose that farms fulfilling grid energy demands must also balance the aerodynamic forces of their turbines to evenly distribute structural degradation among them.
This can be achieved without compromising the power generation when the turbines operate below their maximum energy extraction capacity. We have demonstrated that by implementing a real-time feedback loop, it is feasible to balance aerodynamic loads while meeting wind farm energy demands, albeit limited by wind availability. Moreover, we have demonstrated that balancing aerodynamic forces is advantageous for active power control in a wind farm affected by wake effects, compared to simply distributing power requests uniformly.
At the wind turbine level, we introduced two wind turbine controllers designed to individually restrict real-time aerodynamic loads as a surrogate of structural loads in turbine components. These controllers are referred to as load-limiting controllers. The first load-limiting controller employs an optimal control approach. The operator can impose structural load constraints, using a convex model predictive control for power tracking. The second controller, which is more practical, utilizes a switching mechanism with integral control that allows the operator to prioritize a structural load setpoint over a power demand setpoint. This prioritization aims to reinforce structural safety in situations where turbines are compromised from their design conditions. This could be a consequence of numerous factors, such as unpredictable degradation, installation issues, vessel collisions, and others.
As wind turbines prove to be a viable, reliable, and eco-friendly energy source, new wind farm projects are becoming more ambitious, incorporating a larger number of turbines than ever before. Additionally, there is a substantial growth in wind turbine installations within existing wind farms. This growth in the number of turbines poses an implementation challenge for wind farm control systems. Similar challenges have been encountered in controlling other large-scale systems with collective goals, where agents must instead make decisions based on partial information due to communication limitations in processing or transmission.
Anticipating this implementation challenge, we transition from a centralized to a distributed wind farm control solution. Taking advantage of the time scale inherent in typical wind farm controller implementations, we exchange information with neighboring turbines rather than a central workstation. Our aim, in particular, is not to gather partial information but to achieve consensus across the entire farm. However, our control methodology has a negative implication - the addition of delays - which is carefully examined by the derived stability condition for the design and is assessed through simulations. Notwithstanding these delays, the proposed solution is fully distributed and has been demonstrated to be both simple and effective, facilitating the application of our control solutions in large-scale wind farms.
Lastly, we validate our wind farm control solutions through experiments conducted with scaled wind turbines in full-wake conditions. In this way, we verify the benefits of our control solutions not only through high-fidelity simulations but also through real-world experimentation.
The work presented in this thesis emphasizes the importance of wind turbine controllers capable of offering demanded power to the grid while enhancing reliability in power delivery and addressing structural and maintenance concerns. We introduce closed-loop wind farm controllers designed to handle these challenges. Furthermore, we expand the implementation through a distributed approach on one front, while on the other front, we validate the solutions by means of experiments. The findings from this research contribute to the efficient operation of future wind farms by employing feedback control strategies across clusters of wind turbines.
Towards Control of Large-Scale Wind Farms
A Multi-rate Distributed Control Approach
With the increasing share of renewable energy, concerns regarding ensuring power system stability are ever more relevant and have been accompanied by discussions to address this yet unsolved issue. Nonetheless, enhancing sparsity and increasing generation capacity by overplanting wind turbines not only mitigates the stability problem but also accelerates the transition from fossil fuel to renewable energy sources. With the high penetration of wind energy, there will be a paradigm shift from maximizing energy extraction to generating energy on demand. In this panorama, a cooperative wind farm control may strengthen the stability of the wind power plant through compensation strategies. Still, large-scale farms raise relevant control issues regarding computation effort and information sharing, such as topology constraints and communication overhead. Here, we contribute by presenting a multi-rate distributed control strategy based on average consensus. This strategy involves estimating the power-tracking errors at a fast sampling rate and executing local control actions that collaboratively mitigate these errors over an extended sampling period. This approach achieves performance comparable to that of the resource-intensive centralized approach. The reliability is therefore enhanced by improving the power regulation while reaching modularity and sparsity inside the farm.
Wind energy has emerged as a prominent alternative energy source, harvesting energy through turbines to contribute sustainably to the electricity grid. Effective control of these turbines is crucial for regulating power generation, with wind farm control strategies geared toward maximizing on-demand energy generation. In this work, we propose a wind turbine regulator based on blade-pitch actuation and assess the impact of adopted turbine derating strategies on aerodynamic loading and downstream power availability in an experimental setting. By considering a derating strategy based on generator torque control law, we explore two wind farm control approaches: thrust balance and power compensation. Our findings highlight the advantages of balancing aerodynamic loads across the farm, preventing turbine saturation, and enhancing power availability by 3%-5% compared to a uniform power dispatch. Furthermore, the inclusion of power compensation results in a heightened upper limit in wind farm power tracking, indicating a 22% boost in wind farm power availability. This research underscores the potential benefits of innovative turbine regulation strategies for optimizing wind farm performance and enhancing overall energy flexibility.
As renewable energy sources such as wind farms become dominant, new challenges emerge for operating and controlling them. Traditionally, wind farm control aims to dispatch power set-points to individual turbines to maximize energy extraction and, thus, their usage as assets. Yet, grid balance and frequency support are fundamental in presence of high renewable penetration and volatility of energy prices and demand. This requires a paradigm change, moving from power maximization to revenue maximization. In this paper, three active power control strategies pushing this shift of paradigm are investigated, namely: wake-loss compensation, thrust balancing, and load-limiting control. The findings of large eddy simulations of a reference wind farm show that wake-loss compensation indeed improves the power generation on waked wind farms, but at the price of increased structural loads on certain turbines. The addition of a thrust balancing can equalize the stresses of individual turbines and their wear in the long term, while still attaining the required power output at the farm level. Furthermore, load-limiting controllers could potentially aid by allowing maintenance to be scheduled in a single time window, thus reducing operation and maintenance costs.
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.
Active power control of wind farms
An instantaneous approach on waked conditions
This paper presents a closed-loop controller for wind farms to provide active power control services using a high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics based wind plant simulator. The proposed design enhances power tracking stability and allows for simple understanding, where each turbine is considered as a pure time-delay system. The paper investigates the control performance with different nominal power distributions in a fully waked condition and limited power availability. Results demonstrate the improvement in power production obtained by closing the control loop, compared to greedy operation. Additionally, power tracking capabilities are enhanced with a nominal power distribution favored by axial-induction, as well as the occurrence of turbine saturation and the distribution of loads.
Active Power Control of Waked Wind Farms
Compensation of Turbine Saturation and Thrust Force Balance