2.5_Larsen: Total Control - Advanced integrated control of large-scale wind power plants

Current state of the art wind power plant (WPP) controllers operate wind turbines (WTs) independently as individual machines, thus dispatching the WTs’ set points in an equal manner to all of them. This approach is safe and reliable but far from optimal. To achieve optimal WPP control, three aspects need to be addressed: - Maximizing the yield (power production) balanced against turbine mechanical loading and electricity price - Enhancing WPP capability to provide ancillary services (primary, secondary, and tertiary reserves), and - Reducing operating costs (i.e. reduced fatigue load degradation of WTs and O&M requirement) over the lifetime of the WPP. The goal of TotalControl is to move the WPP controller design philosophy from individual optimization of WT operation to a coordinated optimization of the overall WPP performance. The TotalControl project aims to achieve this by developing and validating advanced integrated WPP/WT control schemes conditioned on grid demands, in which all essential interactions between the WPP WTs are accounted for including production, load and O&M aspects. In order to develop and test the different WPP controllers, a range of high-fidelity and medium-fidelity simulation models are used. These models are already available in the consortium, but will be thoroughly validated against full-scale measurements in the Lillgrund WPP. The TotalControl WPP control approach is built on a hierarchy of controllers, each reacting at different time scales and control time steps. At the slowest control level the WPP is quasi-statically adapting its WT active and reactive power set points as well as WT yaw angles. This controller adapts the WPP to slowly changing environmental conditions and market elements. A second control level is the WT controller accepting power set points from the quasi-steady control levels. Finally, a fast WPP controller that responds dynamically to faster events (turbulent gusts, requests for ancillary services, etc.) and uses feedback from the WTs is being considered. The dynamic WPP controller also contains a direct control level related to the WPP internal power grid (e.g. STATCOM devices, power converters). The talk mainly describes the current state of the project, especially the measurement campaign currently underway at Lillgrund, the turbine control aspects being implemented at the 7MW Samsung turbine at Levenmouth, and the initial works on the high-resolution modelling. The project is running for a 4-year period (starting January 2018) and has 8 partners representing academia, wind farm developers and wind turbine manufactures