Title: Small wind turbine emulator with armature controlled separately excited DC motor via analogue electronic circuit

Authors: A. Mahdy; S.M. El-Hakim; Hanafy Hassan Hanafy

Addresses: Electrical Power and Machines Department, Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, Giza 12613, Egypt. ' Electrical Power and Machines Department, Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, Giza 12613, Egypt. ' Electrical Power and Machines Department, Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, Giza 12613, Egypt

Abstract: In this paper, a small wind turbine emulator (WTE) using separately excited DC motor is modelled, designed, simulated, implemented and tested. A 1 HP separately excited DC motor is used to emulate the characteristics of the rotor of small wind turbine. The DC motor is driven by a thyristor bridge with closed-loop cascaded PI controller for armature control. A separately excited DC generator with a variable resistive load is directly coupled to the DC motor. A small cheap analogue electronic circuit, with less interfacing, is used to generate a specific reference wind turbine speed based on the wind turbine rotor characteristics and the mechanical wind power available. Simulation and experimental results are compared to proof the validity and accuracy of the WTE.

Keywords: small wind turbines; wind turbine emulator; DC motors; thyristor bridge; analogue circuits; turbine speed; turbine rotors; wind energy; wind power.

DOI: 10.1504/IJRET.2012.049523

International Journal of Renewable Energy Technology, 2012 Vol.3 No.4, pp.356 - 371

Received: 07 May 2011
Accepted: 15 Oct 2011

Published online: 29 Oct 2014 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article