Wind Power

Innovative Wind Turbine Control Earns Lucy Pao Prestigious IEEE Award

Daniel Morton — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 15:03:00 +0000

Innovative Wind Turbine Control Earns Lucy Pao Prestigious IEEE Award Daniel Morton Thu, 12/19/2024 - 08:03

Daniel Morton

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI) Fellow Lucy Pao, from the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering at ��«��Ƶ, is travelling to Milan, Italy, this December to receive the IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology Outstanding Paper Award.

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IEEE Conference on Decision and Control

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ForWind Center

Collaboration Highlight

Each year a panel reviews papers nominated from the past two years and selects an article of high significance. The paper, published in 2022, describes the first experimental implementation of Model Predictive Control of the pitch angles of the blades in wind turbines. The Award Ceremony will be held on December 18, 2024, as part of the 2024 IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, held at the Milan Convention Centre in Italy.

Model Predictive Control (MPC) is an established control technique that is popular in the general control systems community. One of the primary demonstrated applications for MPC is in process chemistry for the large-scale manufacture of pharmaceuticals and commodity chemicals. This paper describes, for the first time, the application of this technique in the blade pitch control of wind turbines. Control systems in wind turbines are essential for optimizing their performance, ensuring safety, and maximizing energy output. By monitoring key parameters such as blade pitch, rotor speed, yaw angle, and blade root bending moment, the control system can adapt to changing wind conditions, enhancing the efficiency of power generation and reducing mechanical stress on components, helping to extend the turbine’s lifespan.

“MPC is a very nice approach, but it is computationally complex,” explained Lucy. “There is an optimization that needs to be done at every time step, so getting it into a form where we could implement it, was a challenge”.

While MPC is a computationally intensive approach, the benefits for wind turbines are significant. Many wind turbine control systems are based on a feedback-only system, where the adjustments are based on feedback of what is happening now. MPC enables preview information to be included, so, for example, you can incorporate knowledge of a gust coming through and the controls can prepare the turbine ahead of time, which can reduce structural loading on that turbine. It changes the control system from simply being responsive to stimuli, to instead being proactive to knowledge of the conditions, essentially letting the wind turbine “see into the future”.

The MPC approach could have significant impacts on how wind turbines are controlled, not only improving their efficiency, but also reducing structural stress on the turbines and extending their lifetimes.

“We are really very excited about this award,” said Pao. “This has been a wonderful collaboration with our colleagues at the ForWind Center for Wind Energy Research in Oldenburg Germany. We started in 2016, with an experimental campaign in 2019 that led to this paper”. Misha Sinner, the lead author of the study, was a graduate student working with Lucy Pao and is now a Research Engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Misha travelled to Germany to lead this experimental campaign, and worked together with the team in Germany, led by Martin Kühn, to apply MPC to the turbines. “This was a complex experiment to run, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the team of experts and infrastructure at ForWind,” said Misha. “The collaboration has been a really symbiotic relationship; I really value Martin’s input, support, and feedback on the work,” said Lucy.

The collaboration was sparked over a meeting in Stuttgart in 2015. “Martin and I were both external evaluators on a PhD defense for a student at the University of Stuttgart. We had lots of opportunities to chat, and when I mentioned that I was coming up on a sabbatical, he suggested a fellowship that I could apply for that would enable me to work with them,” explained Lucy. This was the start of the long and fruitful collaboration among the team.

There is hope that the recognition that the award brings will accelerate adoption of advanced control systems by the wind energy industry. “MPC can take into account constraints on the wind turbine system, and it is flexible enough to incorporate preview wind information,” said Lucy. This could provide significant improvements in the efficiency and lifetime of future wind turbines. “It is a really nice control framework, and while it has been looked at in the simulation context, it had not been examined experimentally for blade pitch control, to our knowledge,” said Lucy. “We have heard that Industry is looking at MPC, but we don’t know whether it has made it into their actual controllers. The wind turbine industry can be quite secretive about what they are doing”.

The MPC approach could have significant impact on future, and existing wind turbines, by giving the control system the chance to effectively “see into the future” by a couple to tens of seconds so the turbine can prepare itself. “We are very excited and really touched by this award,” emphasized Lucy, with the hope that this will catch the attention of those in the wind turbine industry.

December 2024

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Overview of preparation for the American WAKE ExperimeNt (AWAKEN)

Daniel Morton — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 17:38:16 +0000

Overview of preparation for the American WAKE ExperimeNt (AWAKEN) Daniel Morton Fri, 10/11/2024 - 11:38

JOURNAL OF RENEWABLE AND SUSTAINABLE ENERGY, 2024, 16, 053306

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A Tutorial on the Control of Floating Offshore Wind Turbines: Stability Challenges and Opportunities for Power Capture

Daniel Morton — Wed, 09 Oct 2024 17:36:37 +0000

A Tutorial on the Control of Floating Offshore Wind Turbines: Stability Challenges and Opportunities for Power Capture Daniel Morton Wed, 10/09/2024 - 11:36

IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS, 2024, 44, 5, 28-57

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Control of Floating Offshore Wind Energy Systems: An Introduction to the Special Issue

Daniel Morton — Fri, 06 Sep 2024 17:16:50 +0000

Control of Floating Offshore Wind Energy Systems: An Introduction to the Special Issue Daniel Morton Fri, 09/06/2024 - 11:16

IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS, 2024

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Investigation of H∞-Tuned Individual Pitch Control for Wind Turbines

Daniel Morton — Fri, 02 Aug 2024 21:09:47 +0000

Investigation of H∞-Tuned Individual Pitch Control for Wind Turbines Daniel Morton Fri, 08/02/2024 - 15:09

WIND ENERGY, 2024, e2945

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Control Co-Design of Wind Turbines

Anonymous — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 06:00:00 +0000

Control Co-Design of Wind Turbines Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 07/01/2024 - 00:00

ANNUAL REVIEW OF CONTROL, ROBOTICS, AND AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS, 2024, 7, 201-226

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2024 DTU PhD Summer School in Remote Sensing

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Jun 2024 06:00:00 +0000

2024 DTU PhD Summer School in Remote Sensing Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 06/28/2024 - 00:00

In June 2024 RASEI hosted the DTU (Danish Technical University) for their Wind and Energy Systems PhD Summer School in Remote Sensing. RASEI Fellow Julie Lundquist was one of the key organizers.

This five-day summer school focused on advances in remote sensing techniques useful in wind energy. This summer school has been held every year for the past 20 years, with a few occasions outside of Denmark (Once in 2012 which was also hosted by RASEI at CU ��«��Ƶ).

The school brought fifteen students from the US and Europe to ��«��Ƶ, along with a dozen speakers. Speakers came together from DTU, NOAA, CU ��«��Ƶ, NREL, PNNL, Texas Tech University and the University of Texas Dallas. The aim of this event was to expose the participants to the latest uses and applications in measuring the dynamics and thermodynamics of the atmosphere, and how these can be employed in wind energy applications. This includes a series of talks, poster presentation sessions, lab tours, including an outdoor weather lab, and ample opportunities for networking and team building.

This is only the second time that this school has been held in the United States, and the second time at CU ��«��Ƶ.

Conference Website

06/24/2024 - 06/28/2024

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How much energy can offshore wind farms in the US produce? New study sheds light

Anonymous — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 23:43:55 +0000

How much energy can offshore wind farms in the US produce? New study sheds light Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 04/25/2024 - 17:43

RASEI Fellow Julie Lundquist highlights the importance of using simulation tools to determine the locations of installing wind turbines

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Seasonal variability of wake impacts on US mid-Atlantic offshore wind plant power production

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 06:00:00 +0000

Seasonal variability of wake impacts on US mid-Atlantic offshore wind plant power production Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 03/14/2024 - 00:00

WIND ENERGY SCIENCE, 2024, 9, 3, 555-583

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Optimal operating points for wind turbine control and co-design

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 07:00:00 +0000

Optimal operating points for wind turbine control and co-design Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 12/20/2023 - 00:00

WIND ENERGY, 2023, 27, 11, 1286-1301

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