A Maximum Power Tracking Technique for Grid-Connected DFIG-Based Wind Turbines

In this paper, a maximum power tracking technique is presented for doubly fed induction generator-based wind turbines. The presented technique is a novel version of the conventional method, i.e., the electrical torque is proportional to the square of the rotor speed, in which the proportional coefficient is adaptively adjusted in real-time through three control laws. The first control law calculates the desired electrical torque using feedback linearization, assuming that the power capture coefficient and the desired rotor speed are instantaneously identified. The second control law estimates the real-time values of the power capture coefficient from a Lyapunov-based analysis, and the third control law provides the desired rotor speed. These control laws cause the turbine to adaptively adjust the rotor speed toward a desired speed in which the operating point moves in the direction of increasing the power capture coefficient. The proposed maximum power tracking method differs distinctly from the perturb-and-observe scheme by eliminating a need for adding a dither or perturbation signal, and robustly tracks the trajectory of maximum power points even in the event of a sudden wind speed change that can cause the perturb-and-observe technique to fail. In this paper, the National Renewal Energy Laboratory 5-MW reference wind turbine model is used to demonstrate the validity and robustness of the proposed method.