Control of switched reluctance generator in wind energy system

A wind energy conversion system with maximum power tracking using a switched reluctance generator is presented in this paper. Maximum power point tracking of the wind turbine is achieved by sensing the wind speed and adjusting the wind turbine shaft speed for optimal tip speed ratio. Outer speed loop with proportional-integral controller generates the current reference used by the inner current loop. Hysteresis current control using soft-chopping is used to control the switched reluctance generator phase currents. Initial excitation is provided by a low voltage battery and rated voltage is built-up by self-excitation. A chopper controlled dump resistor is used to maintain the output dc voltage at rated value. The system is modeled and simulated in MATLAB-SIMULINK and satisfactory results are obtained.