A new variable‐speed,constant‐frequency,stand‐alone power generating system

Variable‐speed and constant‐frequency power generating systems using rotor excitation of the wound‐rotor induction machines have been used for such applications as variable‐speed pump generators and flywheel energy storage systems. However, the stand‐alone generating system of this type has only been reported and has not yet been practically used. On the other hand, the stand‐alone generating systems using diesel engines have been widely used for emergency supplies of plants or isolated islands and so on. However, in these cases, synchronous generators are usually used. If the output frequency is to be kept constant, there is the need to control the speed of the engine using a high‐performance governor. Even then, the output frequency changes in the case of a sudden load change. This paper proposes a new stand‐alone power generating system. In this system, the constant‐frequency output voltage can be obtained even though rotor speed changes by several percent. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 146(2): 75–85, 2004; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.10191     

Maximum power extraction on wind turbine systems using block‐backstepping with gradient dynamics control

In this work, a novel adaptive control scheme that allows driving a stand‐alone variable‐speed wind turbine system to its maximum power point is presented. The scheme is based on the regulation of the optimal rotor speed point of the wind turbine. In order to compute the rotor speed reference, a model‐based extremum‐seeking algorithm is derived. The wind speed signal is necessary to calculate this reference, and a novel artificial neural network is derived to approximate this signal. The neural network does not need off‐line learning stage, because a nonlinear dynamics for the weight vector is proposed. A block‐backstepping controller is derived to stabilize and to drive the system to the optimal power point; to avoid singularities, the gradient dynamics technique is applied to this controller. Numerical simulations are carried out to show the performance of the controller and the estimator. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

S型风力机气动设计

概述S型风力机的工作原理以及优缺点。系统分析了影响S型风轮气动性能的外形参数，总结出S型风力机达到最优气动性能时的外形参数。以最优外形参数为基础设计完成额定功率为300W的S型风力机的气动外形，所得结果可以同类型风力机的设计提供理论指导。     

Dynamic behavior of an island power system with variable‐pitch wind turbines under high renewable energy penetration and high wind speed

High penetration of renewable energy in a power system may cause the problem of power dispatching and stability. The detailed dynamic behavior analysis for such a system is therefore important to the planning and operation of the power system. This study discussed the dynamic characteristics of an island power system with variable‐pitch wind turbines under high wind speed and high small hydraulic output power. The system primarily consisted of three diesel engine power generation systems, three constant‐speed variable‐pitch wind turbines, a small hydraulic induction generation system, and lumped static loads. The maximum penetration of renewable energy in this system could reach almost 60%. Detailed models based on MATLAB/Simulink were developed to cater for the dynamic behavior of the system. The results suggested that this island power system can operate stably in this operational mode with the help of variable‐pitch wind turbines. This study can serve as an important reference for planning, operation, and further expansion of island power systems. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An experimental study of the characteristics of a Darrieus turbine for tidal power generation

The Darrieus turbine was initially developed for wind turbines. An example of its application to water turbines is found in the Darrieus turbine installed in a duct for low head power generation, but no example is known of its application in a natural water channel. The authors have developed a Darrieus turbine that is suitable for tidal current power generation with the aim of establishing tidal current power generation technology through demonstrations in test channels and oceans. The efficiency of tidal current power generation is influenced by the characteristics of the turbine. The characteristics of the Darrieus turbine are mainly affected by the solidity and the number of blades. The Darrieus turbine was tested in test channels to find the most suitable values for the rotor solidity and the number of blades. This paper describes and examines those test results. © 2000 Scripta Technica, Electr Eng Jpn, 132(3): 38–47, 2000     

Integrated DFIG‐based wind turbine model with direct power control

This paper is focused on the model development of doubly fed induction generator (DFIG)‐based wind turbines. The model integrates mechanical and electrical systems. In the mechanical system, the aerodynamic properties are calculated in every section and every angle of attack by using a finite element analysis software, and the dynamic structure analysis is performed by using the Fatigue, Aerodynamics, Structures, and Turbulence (FAST) code. On the other hand, the electrical system includes DFIG modeling, the grid side converter (GSC) with DC bus voltage control, and the rotor side inverter (RSI) with direct power control (DPC). By using the direct power control strategy, the active power, reactive power, and power factor from the DFIG can be controlled to meet the requirements of the grid code. Moreover, the actual measured wind speed data are used in this work to simulate the outputs from the DFIG in order to confirm the feasibility of the wind turbine modeling. According to the simulation results, the proposed model is useful and can provide a reference for further studies about wind turbine technology. © 2015 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Proposal and development of radial air‐gap coreless generator suitable for small wind turbine used in urban area

Independent distributed power generation using small wind turbines is becoming more widespread as wind power generation increases. Installation of small wind turbines in densely populated urban areas is not only useful from the viewpoint of extracting wind power sources in weak‐wind areas but also for making renewable energy easier to access when power supplies are closer to consumers. It is from this point of view that the authors proposed “urban wind power generation” using a collective system with a number of small vertical wind turbines, and have developed a suitable generator for low‐speed vertical wind turbines such as a Savonius windmill. Based on a standard coreless generator, the proposed generator is designed to make the direction of the magnetic flux radial in order to install the magnets and coils on the outer end of the generator. The change of magnet composition and flux direction maximizes the speed of the flux change and output voltage within a limited space. With the above configuration, the power of the proposed generator is independent of the diameter. In this report, the authors describe and evaluate the fundamental performance of a prototype of the proposed generator. Based on the experiments, a maximum output power of 283 W was obtained. The obtained starting torque is small enough to begin rotation under weak wind conditions of no more than 1 m/s. Therefore, it is clear that the proposed “radial” coreless generator is suitable for self‐starting and producing high power at low wind speed. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 167(1): 26– 34, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20695     

A dynamic mathematical model and vector block diagrams for class of hybrid‐field synchronous motors

This paper proposes a new dynamic mathematical model and new block diagrams for a newly emerging class of salient‐pole hybrid‐field synchronous motors (HFSM) that have rotor field by both permanent magnet and winding. The proposed mathematical model has the following completeness and generality. (1) It consists of three consistent basic equations such as circuit, torque, and energy‐transmission equations. (2) It deals with pole saliency and contains nonsaliency as a special case. (3) It is a dynamic model and contains a static one as a special case. (4) It is established in the general reference frame including stator and rotor reference frames as special cases. The proposed new block diagrams using vector signals for salient‐pole HFSM are established based on the model. It has the following attractive features. (1) It succeeds in realizing clear configurations with physically meaningful vector signals, which are helpful for understanding motor electromagnetic mechanisms and useful for designing controllers for the salient‐pole HFSM. (2) Vector signals utilized as transfer signals between blocks are defined in the general reference frame. Consequently, the vector‐signal block diagrams in the frame can be directly and easily reduced to the ones in such a specific frame as stator and rotor frames. (3) It is compact. Two typical and compact but sufficiently general vector‐signal block diagrams are newly presented. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 152(2): 47–57, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20112     

Flywheel‐based AC cache power for stand‐alone power systems

Stand‐alone power systems (SPS) are attracting more and more interest with the global move toward distributed generation (DG). Without strong support from the power grid, they suffer from poor load‐following capability at varying loads. A cache power that has fast response and high energy efficiency is demanded. As a solution, this paper provides an AC power technology based on flywheel energy storage. Different from the other DC generation technologies such as electric double layer capacitor (EDLC) or superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES), the proposed flywheel system generates AC power and therefore can be directly connected to the power line without any power semiconductors. Furthermore, the proposed technology realizes power in/out automatically in response to the frequency/voltage variation of the power line. Therefore, this system has the advantages of robustness, simplicity, and fast response. Besides, by getting rid of power semiconductors, the proposed flywheel system has a good overload capability as high as two to three times. We prove by simulation and experimentation the validity and effectiveness of the proposed technology to provide cache power for stand‐alone power systems. © 2013 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Evaluation model for multi‐microgrid with autonomous DC energy exchange

This paper proposes an evaluation model to analyze the impact of microgrid topologies on self‐sufficiency for a given size of batteries and photovoltaic (PV) panels (resources). Three topologies are evaluated for a community of 19 houses: centralized resources (ideal case), stand‐alone resources, and a multi‐microgrid topology with autonomous exchange. Depending on the ratio of PV and battery size, the topology with stand‐alone resources has a clear disadvantage in terms of self‐sufficiency compared to the centralized, ideal topology. To counteract this, we propose a hybrid topology: households are interconnected so that they can exchange energy between each other based on an autonomous energy exchange algorithm we developed. We show that for a well‐chosen ratio of batteries and PV, the interconnected system can improve the stand‐alone design by up to 10% without requiring any additional resources. This topology can approach performance similar to that of a centralized microgrid but its design is more flexible and resilient to failures or accidents. The evaluation model computes the self‐sufficiency ratio (SSR) for the three topologies for 0–20 kWh batteries and 1–14 kWp PV sizes. Furthermore, seasonal differences in SSR per topology are analyzed for an actual community with real resources. We also calculate the savings in PV and battery due to the interconnected topology. Finally, the third topology's feasibility is demonstrated on a full‐scale platform in Okinawa on which the autonomous energy exchange software was tested for over a year in a community of 19 houses. © 2017 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Calculation of sudden three‐phase short‐circuit current of turbine generators by 3D magnetic field analysis

Sudden three‐phase short‐circuit current of a turbine generator was calculated by a three‐dimensional magnetic field analysis. That analysis takes into account the rotation, magnetic saturation, and eddy current at a rotor part. To compare test results and calculated results, a method was proposed for short‐circuit phase estimation at sudden three‐phase short‐circuit test by line voltage waveform of the test results. The calculated results of short‐circuit current waveform are in good agreement with the test results. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 153(1): 54–62, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20110     

Low complexity M‐PPM impulse‐radio ultra wideband over fiber system for wireless sensor networks applications

Ultra wideband over fiber (UWBoF) systems have been proposed to extend wireless range and to interconnect stand‐alone UWB networks. These systems have focused on high‐data‐rate applications. However, UWB will be a key enabler for low‐data‐rate wireless sensor network (WSN) deployments. In this letter, a low‐cost and low‐complexity M‐ary pulse position modulation (PPM) impulse radio (IR)‐UWBoF system designed for WSNs applications is proposed. A spectral line‐suppressive convolutional code is used to achieve spectral line suppression in the power spectral density (PSD). Experimental results show that the system does not distort or add spectral lines to the IR‐UWB signal PSD transmitted over 30 km of a single‐mode fiber, thus demonstrating its feasibility to interconnect WSN deployments. © 2015 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Performance prediction of a hybrid‐excitation synchronous machine with axially arranged excitation poles and permanent‐magnet poles

This paper presents a method of predicting the steady‐state performance of a new hybrid‐excitation synchronous machine (HESM) theoretically. The field pole of this HESM is axially divided into two parts; one is an excitation part and the other a permanent‐magnet (PM) part. A nonlinear equivalent circuit, which can include the saliency of the rotor and the magnetic saturation due to the iron core, is derived. Based on this equivalent circuit, the steady‐state performance of the HESM is calculated, and the results are confirmed through experiments. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 150(2): 43–49, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20033     

A current sensorless MPPT control method for a stand‐alone‐type PV generation system

In this paper, a current sensorless MPPT control method for a stand‐alone‐type PV generation system is proposed. This control method offers advantages of the simplified hardware configuration and low cost by using only one sensor to measure the PV output voltage. When used as a stand‐alone‐type with a battery load, the experimental results show that the estimated values of PV output current are accurate, and the use of the proposed MPPT control increases the PV generated energy by 16.3% compared to the conventional system. Furthermore, the authors clarified that the proposed method has an extremely high UUF (useful utilization factor) of 98.7%. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 157(2): 65– 71, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience. wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20424     

Influence of wind turbulence on yaw‐control gears in wind turbine

This paper describes the influence of wind turbulence on the yaw‐control gears of the nacelle in a wind power station. The site is located on Tappi Cape in Aomori prefecture, where major wind turbulence occurs due to the strong western wind and the steep slope of the cape. This paper discusses two adjacent wind towers out of a total of eleven and clarifies the influence of wind turbulence on the leeward wind power generator. Measurements showed that the turbulence and the standard deviation frequently exceeded IEC Wind Turbine Standards. Consequently, the torque applied to the yaw‐control gears oscillated with a short time period and its magnitude was frequently greater than 4.8 ton‐m (47 kN‐m), regarded as the metal fatigue limit. By a method in which the output of the wind turbine generator is controlled, the magnitude of the oscillating torque can be reduced below the limit of material fatigue. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 176(4): 15–25, 2011; Published online in Wiley Online Library ( wileyonlinelibrary.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.21141     

Design and performance analysis of a 700‐kW wound‐rotor BDFIG for ship shaft generator application

In this paper, a 700‐kW brushless doubly fed induction generator (BDFIG) is designed for stand‐alone ship shaft generator application. Based on the principle of tooth harmonics and sinusoidal winding structure, a multi‐pitch unequal‐turn‐coil wound rotor is adopted to reduce harmonic contents and couple the two stator windings effectively. The performance analyses of a prototype BDFIG with two/four pole pairs are presented. The magnetic fields, air‐gap flux densities, and current densities with full load at different shaft speeds of the prototype machine are investigated. Simulation analysis and experimental tests verify that the output capability and the efficiency of the prototype machine could meet the design requirements of a 700‐kW generator and that the wound rotor structure is suitable for high‐power brushless doubly fed machines. © 2015 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Development of trouble diagnosis technology of 50‐W‐grade micro wind turbine generator

The establishment of an early trouble diagnosis system is needed in order to prevent damage to wind turbine generators. Therefore, acoustic emission (AE) signals resulting from damage to a wind blade were detected with an AE sensor installed on the body of the wind turbine generator and on the mounting pole. In this study, the length of a blade of a micro wind turbine generator was varied to simulate trouble at constant wind velocity. The AE signals which occurred at this time were measured with an AE sensor. The signal was processed by FFT analysis, and the change of spectral strength was examined. A trouble diagnosis technology for 50‐W‐grade micro wind turbines generator was then developed. A method of counting the number of occurrences of above‐threshold AE signals was suggested by the wave pattern of the AE signals. It was found that the number of occurrences could be used as a standard to judge the normality or abnormality of 50‐W‐grade micro wind turbine generators. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 174(1): 33–39, 2011; Published online in Wiley Online Library ( wileyonlinelibrary.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.21017     

3D FEM analysis,dynamic modeling,and performance assessment of transverse flux PMSG for small‐scale gearless wind energy conversion systems

The transverse flux permanent magnet synchronous generator has a great potential for use in direct‐drive wind energy conversion systems due to its large pole numbers, high torque, and power density. This research work develops dynamic model of a single‐side transverse flux permanent magnet synchronous generator for use in a small‐scale gearless wind energy conversion system. For acquiring the parameters of the considered generator, required for dynamic modeling, 3D finite element model of the machine is developed and analyzed in both magneto‐static and transient modes. Field‐oriented control approach is employed for tracking maximum power point from the variable wind speed. The simulation results illustrate an accurate response of the system to the wind speed variation and proper performance of the developed dynamic model and control approach of the system. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development of a city‐type compact wind power generation system

It is necessary to use renewable energy, such as photovoltaic, wind power, and biomass energy, from the viewpoint of CO₂ regulation and environmental protection of the Earth. In recent years, the tendency is toward larger wind power generation systems to achieve cheaper electricity. Generators having capacities of 1500 kW to 2000 kW tend to dominate the market. However, a large wind power generation system has limitations in terms of location and can be installed only in the suburbs. At the same time, a city‐type compact wind power generation system, designed for city needs, has more flexibility and can be installed in the residential areas of a city. In this paper, we introduce an original control operation system called a “pump‐up” operation system, designed to effectively use the city wind, and report the results of its field test. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 158(2): 56–63, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20440     

Effects of output power fluctuation on short‐circuit current of induction‐type wind power generators

Effects of the fluctuation inherent in wind speed are studied by a probabilistic method. The random variation in wind speed is responsible for random behavior in output power and internal voltage of a wind power generator. In case of fault occurrence at the instant of high internal voltage, the resultant short‐circuit current will be big, and vice versa. The DC component is also affected. According to the study, 2.4% and 1.3% increase of short‐circuit current in AC and DC components are observed respectively in a large variation case. This implies that the wind speed variation should be considered for accurate short‐circuit study. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 166(3): 27–36, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20721