Investigation of maximum wind power extraction using adaptive virtual lookup‐table approach

With the advance of power electronic technology, direct‐driven permanent magnet synchronous generators (PMSG) have increasingly drawn interests to wind turbine manufacturers. Unlike a fixed‐speed wind turbine, the maximum power extraction of a PMSG wind turbine is affected by (1) electrical characteristics of the generator, (2) aerodynamic characteristics of the turbine blades, and (3) maximum power extraction strategies. In an environment integrating all the three characteristics, it is found in this paper that the existing commercial lookup‐table maximum power extraction mechanism suitable to a DFIG wind turbine is not suitable to a PMSG wind turbine. Through the integrative study of all the three characteristics, this paper proposes a novel PMSG maximum power extraction design. The special features of the proposed strategy include (i) an adaptive virtual lookup‐table approach for PMSG maximum power extraction and (ii) an implementation of the peak power‐tracking scheme based on a novel direct‐current vector control configuration. The proposed maximum power extraction mechanism with a nested speed‐ and current‐loop control structure is built by using MatLab SimPowerSystems. Simulation studies demonstrate that the proposed PMSG peak power‐tracking strategy has superior performance in various aspects under both stable and gust wind conditions. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.