Blade-Pitch Control for Structural Load Mitigation of Large-scale Wind Turbines

Abstract

Wind energy is one of the fastest-growing sources of electricity nowadays. Modern wind turbines are becoming larger to improve energy efficiency and to harvest more power from the wind. The larger size and more flexible structure of wind turbines lead to higher mechanical stresses on the wind turbine’s components. These stresses known as structural load might cause early failures reducing the turbine’s service lifetime and limit the size of the turbines. Over the past decade, advanced control algorithms have been developed to reduce structural load allowing to build larger turbines as well as extend the turbine’s service lifetime. This article introduces and summaries the results of a novel advanced control algorithm for structural load reduction and power output maximization for large-scale wind turbines developed by the author in the related doctoral dissertation.