STTR Phase I: Extremum Seeking Control of Wind Turbines and Wind Farms

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project is the introduction of a new wind farm control strategy that is expected to increase the power generated by a typical wind farm by 3-10%. Wind farm owners and operators face continuous pressure to reduce the price per megawatt-hour of the grid energy that they produce. Improving the energy yield of existing wind farms by optimizing array yaw angles (known as “wake steering”) may lower the cost of energy, increase our customer’s profits, and promote greater wind energy penetration in domestic and global grid energy markets. This STTR Phase I project proposes to develop a new model-free approach to maximizing the annual energy produced by wind farms. On most wind farms, the turbines are operated independently, relying only on their individual wind sensors to determine the wind direction and to make control decisions to orient themselves to generate maximum power. The proposed approach will allow arrays of turbines to work together to minimize losses by steering the wakes of upstream turbines away from the downwind rows, increasing net power production. While this technique has been proposed in the past, the methods employed have relied on control algorithms that use models to determine the key operating parameters. Since every wind farm is different, those parameters must be tuned on-site using expensive and time-consuming calibration campaigns. Moreover, as the turbines age, those parameters can end up far from their optimal values. The new proposed scheme takes a different, model-free approach that may eliminate the need for parameter calibration while ensuring that the array continuously operates at its peak performance even as atmospheric and other environmental conditions change and the physical conditions of the turbines deteriorate.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.