Life-oriented control of tidal power generation

Tidal turbine generator is an effective means to harness ocean power for utility level uses. A major technical obstacle to deploying tidal turbine systems is their vulnerability to intermittent torque stresses applied on shafts. In this paper, a hybrid control strategy is proposed to smooth the torques on the shaft by combining the maximum power point control and torque control, realized by PI controllers. Numerical tests show that, under this strategy, the life cycle of a typical 3kW system can be extended up to 40 times.