Automated electric control of a vertical axis wind turbine in island operation

At the Division of Electricity at Uppsala University, a wind power concept has been developed. The concept uses a vertical axis wind turbine with a direct driven generator. The turbine has fixed blades, making speed control the only way to regulate power absorption. The speed is controlled with the electric load. The turbine is not self-starting, but can be started using the generator as a motor. In this project, an unsupervised electric system with automatic control is designed and constructed. The starting point is a detailed study of the earlier developed control system. To be able to select the rating of the components, theoretical calculations are done. Simulations in MATLAB are performed to predict the behavior of the system. The resulting system is a working prototype in operation outside of Uppsala. The system starts the turbine using a new start-up strategy. Loading of the generator is controlled by primarily supplying a regular consumer with direct current and secondly dissipating additional power as heat. A circuit stopping the turbine, in case of different failures, is included in the system