Assessing Consequences of Wind Turbine Active Power Control

该项目旨在为加拿大领先的风能测试站点提供所需的分析工具，以探索风电场运营的新策略。加拿大风能研究所（WEICan）拥有并运营一座10兆瓦的风电场，用于电力生产和研究。有源功率控制是一项日益增长的研究兴趣，即不断调整涡轮机输出功率以满足当地电力系统的波动需求。如果风力发电场的输出可以调整，以帮助匹配每分钟的需求变化或其他发电，那么风力发电场实际上可以帮助电网的稳定。然而，改变风力涡轮机的运行方式有引入额外结构负荷和增加磨损的风险，最终减少风力发电场的使用寿命或增加运营成本。因此，探索有功功率控制需要更好地了解潜在的后果。对于像WEICan这样的研究机构来说更是如此，它对试验新的和创新的控制策略很感兴趣。为了解决这个问题，UPEI团队将开发WEICan风力涡轮机的模拟模型。这些模型将与WEICan合作，根据现有涡轮机的测量结果进行调整，然后通过WEICan感兴趣的不同场景进行试验。通过分析风力涡轮机力和挠度的模拟结果，我们可以估计在一系列环境条件下，各种运行策略对风力涡轮机健康的影响。最终，这些结果，以及用于产生这些结果的新开发模型，将使WEICan深入了解它可以安全地探索其涡轮机的有功功率控制方案，从而实现未来探索和演示新的风力涡轮机运行策略。

This project aims to provide Canada's leading wind energy test site with the analysis tools needed to explorenew strategies for wind farm operation. The Wind Energy Institute of Canada (WEICan) owns and operates a10 MW wind farm for power production and research purposes. A growing research interest is in active powercontrol, where turbine power output is adjusted on an ongoing basis to meet the fluctuating needs of the localelectricity system. If wind farm output can be adjusted to help match minute-by-minute changes in demand orother generation, then wind farms can actually assist with stability of the power grid. However, changing awind turbine's operation runs the risk of introducing additional structural loads and increasing wear and tear,ultimately reducing wind farm lifetime or increasing operating costs. Exploring active power control thereforerequires a better understanding of the potential consequences. This is all the more true for a research institutionsuch as WEICan, which has interest in experimenting with new and innovative control strategies. To addressthis, the UPEI team will develop simulation models of WEICan's wind turbines. These models will be tuned incollaboration with WEICan based on measurements of the existing turbines, and then put through differentscenarios that WEICan has interest in experimenting with. By analysing the simulation results in terms of windturbines forces and deflections, we can estimate the consequences on wind turbine health from variousoperating strategies and under a range of environmental conditions. Ultimately, these results, and the newlydeveloped models used to produce them, will give WEICan insight into what active power control scenarios itcan safely explore with its turbines, enabling future exploration and demonstration of novel wind turbineoperating strategies.