Renewable Energy Systems

Wind Power Systems

Sources: Masters (Chapter 6)
Electrical Engineering
Muhammad Jafar
Historical development of wind power
Used for thousands of years
Grinding Grain
Propelling sailing ships
Pumping water
Powering of factory machines
Historical development of wind power
First wind electric generator built by a Dane – 1891
Hydrogen production
We are thinking on the same lines these days

Wind generators were used quite frequently in the US due to unavailability of the
grid (1890s – 1940s)

Grid arrives, fossil power takes over

Oil shock of 1970s brought energy security into the picture

More wind power in US in the late 70s and early 80s

Historical development of wind power
The US market collapses and so
does the overall industry

Climate concerns kick in and wind

gains acceptance and government
support in Europe

Continues till today

Historical development of wind power
Country wise wind capacity
Old data in the textbook

Latest data
Wind power
Fastest growing renewable technology
Price from 37 cents per kWh in 1980 to 4
cents per kWh in 2008
Wind power
Nations do a lot to determine this potential
Wind power
Wind depends on
Rotation of earth
Variations in suns irradiance
Differential heating of land and sea
Topography
Describing parameters
Speed
Direction
Speed measurements
Anemometer
Average speed determines wind potential
Speed measured for a year
Compared with long-term data from nearby
weather station to predict future wind speeds
Wind turbine
Constituents
Blades: attached to the hub and capture wind power
• Wind creates lift and drag
• Lift rotates the blades
• Drag pushes them but turbines designed to minimize drag
Rotor: gathers power for the generator
Pitch control: to maximize wind capture or reduce wind capture when there is too much
Rotor brake: stops the rotor for maintenance
Low speed shaft: transfer low-speed power to gearbox
Gearbox: transfers power from low-speed to high-speed shaft
• High maintenance
• Weight
• Noise
• Cost
• Losses
Wind turbine
Constituents
Generators: Induction or permanent magnet synchronous generators (PMSG)
Controller: for electrical and mechanical operation
Anemometer: wind speed measurements
Weather vane: wind direction measurement
Nacelle: houses all components atop the wind turbine tower
High-speed shaft: coupled to generator rotor, transfers wind power
Yaw drive: keeps the turbine blade plane perpendicular to wind direction
Tower: supports the blades and the nacelle
Wind turbine
Types of wind turbines
According to orientation of axis of
rotation
Horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWT)
Vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT)

HAWT
Most widely adopted
• Upwind
• Most widely adopted technology
• Needs direction control
• No shadowing effect
• Downwind
• Does not need direction control
• Problems with shadowing effect
Types of wind turbines
Modern 2- or 3-bladed HAWT design
Types of wind turbines
Details
Types of wind turbines
VAWT
Not so many
Not very successful
Benefits
• Does not have to track wind direction
• No nacelle at height
• Lower mechanical stress on blades
Disadvantages
• Blades close to ground: turbulent and
lower speed wind
• Speed control is not simple
Example: Darrieus turbine
VAWT examples
VAWT designs
Inside a wind turbine
A good overview
Yaw and pitch mechanisms
Power in the wind
 Consider the energy contained in a ‘packet’ of wind

Power is energy per unit time

mass flow rate of

Power in the wind
Combine

and

We get the most important wind power equation

Power in the wind
Wind power per square meter (power density) at 15C and 1 atmosphere
pressure
Power in the wind
Important to note
Power proportional to the cube of the wind speed
• Larger turbines do not even start to turn at low wind speeds without significant loss of overall conversion
efficiency
Power proportional to the swept area of the turbine rotor
• Larger the diameter, larger the blade length, larger the total power
• Power proportional to the square of the rotor diameter
• Cost increases linearly with diameter
• Hence larger turbines produce more energy with less cost
Power in the wind
VAWT swept area
Example
Example

Moral: average wind speed data will underestimate available energy

Temperature correction for air density
 Assumed air density 1.225 kg/m2
Underlying assumptions
temperature is 15C
Pressure is 1 atmosphere

Actual air density can be calculated using universal gas law

 mass in moles
 ideal gas constant m3.atm.K-1.mol-1


Temperature correction for air density
Combine

We get
Temperature correction for air density
 of air
Constituents
• Nitrogen: 78.08%
• Oxygen: 20.95%
• Argon: 0.93%
• Carbon dioxide: 0.035%
• Neon:0.0018%
Constituent molecular weights
• Nitrogen (N2=28.02)
• Oxygen (O2=32)
• Argon (Ar=39.95)
• Carbon dioxide (CO2=44.01)
• Neon (Ne=20.18)
Calculation
Example


Table of air density
Altitude correction for air density
Dependance of density on pressure
Pressure changes with altitude
Means power availability also changes

Consider fig.
Notice
weight of a thin slice dz
Pressure above and below the slice

Change in pressure as we go up
Altitude correction for air density
We at

Air density equation

So

T changes with elevation but we assume it is constant (6.5C drop per kilometer of
height gained)
Solving 6.11
Example

Example

Density correction with temperature and pressure
Example
Impact of tower height
 Remember power proportional to the cube of wind speed
Means small increase in speed can improve output drastically
Hence installed at height (higher wind speeds?)
• Better speed at height

Just above the ground wind speeds dependent on

Friction offered by surface (land and ocean)
Smooth surfaces offer less resistance

Mathematical model (favored in the US)

 friction coefficient
Friction coefficient for various terrains
 European friction model (mathematically sound)

 roughness length
 Impact of friction coefficient on wind speed
(reference height = 10m)
Note
Low : speed at 100 m just 1.25 times that at 10 m
High : speed at 100 m 2 times that at 10 m
 Impact of height on power
Note
Low : power at 100m 2 times that at 10m
High : power at 75m 6 times that at 10m
Example
Look at the equation

Can be used to directly calculate relative power

Example

Power ratio
Rotor stress
Blade tip exposed to higher wind speeds at
the top of the circle
The same blade tip sees significantly less wind
force
Further complication:
Tower shadowing: more pronounced in downwind
machines
Consequence: flexing of the blade
Maximum rotor efficiency
100% energy cannot be converted in any technology
Reason: Physical constraints (Nature of how things work)
Heat engines: Carnot efficiency
Solar PV: band gap of material
Fuel cells: Gibb’s free energy

True for wind power as well

Who defined limits for wind: Albert Betz in 1919

Imagine what happens to wind when it
passes through a turbine
Kinetic energy converted to electrical
Wind downstream should slow down
Pressure reduction and as a result expansion of
the wind stream

Technical term: stream tube

Envelope around air mass that passes through
the turbine
Question: why is not possible to extract all the
energy in the wind?
 Because the wind would stop and it wouldn’t have
anywhere to go
 Blocking of the air coming in from behind
 Inference: not possible to extract all energy from wind

Question: can the velocity in and out of the turbine

be the same:
 No, because then there would be zero energy extracted

Conclusion: there must be an ideal slowing of wind

through the turbine for optimum energy collection
 Betz determined this limit
 Wind to slow down to one third of the original speed for
maximum efficiency
 Mathematics
Extracted power (difference of upwind
energy and downwind energy per second))

Where
 mass flow rate (kg-s/m)
 upwind speed
 downwind speed

 at the plane of rotor

 Assume as the average of and

Ratio of and

Leading to
The term in the square brackets is the
‘fraction of wind power’ extracted from
available
Or rotor efficiency

So extracted power is

Maximum efficiency

Leading to

Substitute back into

We get Betz efficiency or Betz’ law
Plot of
What are practical maximum
efficiencies?
Upto 80% max
Overall max efficiency (0.593*0.8=47.4%)

Physical understanding
Rotor turns too slow: too much of the
wind passes through the turbine plane
without encountering a blade
Rotor turns too fast: blade sees
turbulence caused by the blade ahead of
it
Industry method to describe rotor efficiency using “Tip-speed-ratio”
Speed of the tip of the blade divided by wind speed
Example
Example
Example
Wind turbine generators
Mostly AC generators
Exception small wind turbines that charge batteries (not to be discussed here)
Synchronous generators
Most generators in the world are synchronous
generators

Important feature
Rotate at fixed speeds to generate fixed frequency

Construction
Rotors contain field windings
Rotors do have permanent magnets for field
Synchronous generators
Non-salient and Salient rotor construction (wound rotor)
Shaft rotational speeds, number of poles and output electrical frequency
Number of poles on the rotor and stator are equal
Three-phase generator (fig. slightly misleading)
Arrangement inside a wind turbine (wound rotor)
Permanent magnet generators
Direct drive
The asynchronous induction generator
Mostly used in the beginning of the new wind revolution
 Still being used in old turbines

Don’t require fixed speed of rotation

Induction motor and generator are the same machine

 Works as generator when mechanical input rotates the machine at faster than synchronous speed

Wind induction generators act as motors during startup

Preferred because of
 Single connection to the stator
 Simpler construction means cost saving
 Improve mechanical stress on the turbine blades during strong gusts
Rotating field
Notice
Current directions
Corresponding field direction
Field orientations due to three phases (note orientation of resultant flux)
The squirrel cage rotor
construction
Stator- and rotor-field interactions
Force equation
Induced voltage in the rotor
Induction machine as a motor
more the difference in relative speed more the induced voltge
Higher the current in rotor
Higher the force
Induction motor never spins at the synchronous speed
At sync. speed, the force produced is zero
Friction forces the speed down
Example
Induction machine as a generator
Process
Start as a motor and accelerate the turbine rotor to near synch speed
Pitch the blades into the wind
Rotor starts accelerating and moves faster than the synch speed
Generator action starts

Slip is negative here

Grid-connected generator slip about 1%

Self-excited induction generator
Speed control for maximum power
Importance of variable rotor speeds
Remember this?
TSR should be between 4 and 6 for max
efficiency
Means blade speed should change with
wind speed

Efficiency against wind speed variation

Constant rotor rpm
Observe flat peaks
Better to have steps in speed instead of
continuous fine adjustments
Impact on electrical output
Implications of variable speed
Generator synchronism issue (sync)
Not an issue with standalone wind turbines

Variable speed not a problem with full power converters isolating grid and the
machine side
Pole changing induction generators
Pole changing changes synch. speed
Change poles and the operational speed changes
Stator poles changed; cage rotor does not have issues with that
Multiple gearboxes
To improve efficiency
One low-wind-speed gear ratio
One high-wind-speed gear ratio
Variable-slip induction generator
Slip is normally around 1% in induction generators
Recall slip is a function of rotor DC resistance
Can be varied to 10% by adding resistance to the rotor
Cage rotor out of question
Simplicity lost
Connection to rotor required

Possible solution to mount the resistor and controls on the rotor itself
Still need to communicate with the electronics
Can be done wirelessly
Indirect grid connection systems
Wind turbine allowed to rotate at optimal speed
Needs power electronics interface
Very beneficial to wind turbine mechanical system (reduces stresses and ageing)
Average power in the wind
Measure of energy expectation
We have seen we cannot determine average power by putting in average wind
speed in the power equation
Average power in the wind
We need to have overall average

We need the average value of the cube of velocity

Discrete wind histogram
Basics of probability and statistics
Average wind velocity = unit distance of wind gone past the turbine / total time it
took
Example case for a 10 hour period:
3 h of no wind
3 h at 5 mph
4 h at 10 mph
Discrete wind histogram
Rearrange

General form
Discrete wind histogram
From

Probability talk
Probability of no wind = 0.3
Probability of 5 mph = 0.3
Probability of 10 mph = 0.4

Average speed in probabilities

Discrete wind histogram
We interested in average value of wind speed cubed which is obtained in a
similar manner
Discrete wind histogram
Anemometers can give long term data like this in a histogram
Example
Example
Example
Complete table
Example
Average wind speed

Average wind cubed

Average power in the wind

Wrong calculation
Wind power probability density functions
From discrete to continuous wind speed data
Probability density function (p.d.f.)
Wind power probability density functions
Mathematics
Wind farms (or wind parks)
A good site can be used to install multiple turbines
Profitable business these days
Concerns
Turbines at upwind locations will slow down the wind
Turbines downwind will experience turbulent wind conditions
At some distance downwind of a turbine, wind accelerates again
Turbines cannot be placed too close to each other
Array efficiency as a function of tower
spacing
Array efficiency is predicted output divided
by predicted output without any
interference due to wind farm effect
Array efficiency lower at lower tower spacing
Array efficiency higher for the same spacing
if the number of turbines is lower
A good idea not to have square arrays
Better to have rectangular arrays with fewer
rows perpendicular to prevailing winds
Rule of thumb regarding tower spacing
 3-5 rotor diameters between turbines in a row
 5-9 diameters between rows
Rule of thumb regarding tower spacing
Offsetting or staggering
Example 6.12
Solution
Solution
Specific wind turbine performance calculations
Aerodynamics review
Generation of lift on a simple airfoil

The case of a wind turbine

Net wind vector points slightly downwards
Lift force is at an angle and not vertical
Tip rotating faster than the parts of the blade
closer to the hub
Blades must be twisted to maintain the same
direction of lift force throughout the length of
the blade
Specific wind turbine performance calculations
Aerodynamics review
The case of a wind turbine

Increasing angle increases lift and drag both

Beyond a certain angle of attack, the blade stalls
Airflow does not stick to the blade, only turbulence
Idealized wind turbine power curve
Cut-in wind speed
 Minimum speed at which the wind
turbine can be operated
 Maximum speed below which lift is not
enough to overcome rotor friction
 Even if it is, the available power is not
enough to offset generator excitation
power requirements
Rated wind speed
 Power rises above the cut-in speed at
roughly the cube of the wind speed
 At rated speed, the generator is supplying
rated power
 Power above rated speed has to be shed,
otherwise, turbine and generator both
will be overloaded
Techniques for wind shedding
Pitch control
• monitoring of generator output
• Pitch out or decrease angle of attack if the
power is above rated
• Vice versa
• Pitching means rotating the entire blade
about its axis
Stall control
• Blade designed for low efficiency at high
wind speeds
• No active control
• Called passive control
Active stall control (for larger machines)
• Similar to pitch control
• But angle of attack is increased instead to
deliberately generate stall conditions
Techniques for wind shedding in
smaller turbines (kW size)
Several techniques
One of them is passive yaw control
Move the turbine to rotate away from
the prevailing wind conditions
• Can be accomplished by mounting the
turbine slightly to the side of the tower
• Turbine will be pushed out of the wind by
strong winds
• Wind vane parallel to the plane of the blades
• The turbine will be pushed aside if the wind
is too strong
Cut-out or furling wind speed
Wind shedding is no longer possible
beyond this wind velocity
Turbine is damaged if nothing is done
Pitch- and active stall- controlled
turbines simply rotate the blades to
create stall
Stall-controlled turbines cannot do this
• Equipped with hinged tips loaded with
springs
• When there is too much wind, a hydraulic
system trips the springs and tips rotate 90
out of wind slowing and stopping the turbine
• If hydraulic system fails, springs are tripped
by excessive speeds automatically
Optimizing rotor diameter and generator rated power
Increase rotor diameter
 Rated power available at lower wind speeds
 Get more wind power for lower wind speeds overall

Increase generator kVA

 Get more power at higher wind speeds

Manufacturers offer same power rating with different rotor

diameters
Or offer more power ratings with the same rotor diameter
Customers can choose based on their site conditions
Low average wind speed sites can use larger rotor diameters
High average wind speed sites can use larger generator
ratings
Using real power curves with Weibull statistics
 Total annual kWh can be
calculated knowing what wind
speeds prevail for what duration
during an entire year
If wind data is not available, we
can use Weibull statistics
Shape parameter
Scale parameter

If only average wind speed is

known
We use Rayleigh with and
Number of hours for a wind speed
times turbine power at that speed
gives us units produced on that
speed per year
We can do this for all discrete wind
speeds
Sum up and get the total energy
output

Probability of particular wind speed

occurring is 0
Probability with a range is not zero
E.g.
Probability function
Using capacity factor to estimate energy produced
Power rating is very important
How many kW or MW can a generator produce continuously
Assures the TSO about availability of power
Dictated by the rated power of the electrical machine
Total energy at rated power is the product of rating and total hours in a year
No generator can do that
True for wind turbines too
Capacity factor (CF) is the ratio of actual energy delivered to theoretical
maximum energy in a year
So
Example

The example is quite misleading

CF was calculated from actual energy calculation which was meticulous
The purpose of CF is to estimate actual energy delivered based on rough
estimates about CF
Capacity factor with changing average
wind speeds
 linear for average wind speeds which
are moderate
Flattens at high and low wind speeds
Linearized capacity factor

General equation for almost all types

of turbines
Is high capacity factor good
High CF means much energy is being wasted in the wind shedding region
Advantageous to the power system
However, it also means a lot of wind power is not being captured
Better to have larger generators (expensive)
Again the CF will go down with larger generators
Wind turbine economics
Economics in flux due to
Larger turbines
More efficient
• From 600 kWh per year per sq. m to 1200
Impact
Lower cost
More deployment
Example improvement
Capital costs and annual costs
Cost per kW has gone down
Cheaper for a wind farm
Wind farm installed costs
2017: $1610 per kW
2009: $ 2405 per kW
Larger turbines are cheaper
Available power and energy is proportional to square of diameter
Cost is proportional to diameter
The same holds true for tower height, labor costs etc.
Onshore wind
Cost analysis of a 60-MW wind farm
Annualized cost of electricity from wind turbines
 Annual cost / annual energy delivered
Annual cost
Spread capital investment over the project lifetime
Add annual cost of operations and maintenance
Capital recovery factor (CRF) method
• Interest rate
• Loan term
• Annual payment
• Principal borrowed amount
Increasing interest rate and decreasing loan term enhance CRF
Example
Sensitivity of cost of electricity to capacity factor
Example
Comments
This cost analysis is still simplistic because it does not consider
Depreciation
inflation
Taxes
Subsidies to the wind power sector
Figure on next slide does consider these
Depicts sensitivity to capacity factor
Environmental impacts of wind turbines
Negative
 Construction noise
 Bird kills
• Other human made obstacles kill more birds
• Older fast moving turbines killed more birds
• Birds now avoid turbines (learning) even in the presence of decoys
 Noise
• Turbines now designed to reduce noise levels
• Sound level a few rotor diameters away equal to whispering noise levels
 Aesthetic impact
• Same size turbine
• Rotating in synchronism
• Colouring
• Slow-rotating turbines cause less problems to the observer
Positive
 Displaces polluting and greenhouse gas emitting sources
• SOX, NOX, CO, CO2, VOCs, particulate matter