Experimental Comparison of Passive and Synchronous Rectification on a Locally Manufactured Small Wind Turbine

In this article, synchronous rectification was studied as a solution to increase the energy yield of battery connected Locally Manufactured Small Wind Turbines (LMSWTs). An analytical expression to determine the necessary battery voltage for synchronous rectification on the LMSWT Permanent Magnets Synchronous Generator (PMSG) was derived. It was found that the battery voltage for synchronous rectification should be two times higher than that of the passive strategy for an identical generator. The performance of the LMSWT under synchronous rectification with Field Oriented Control (FOC) and Optimal Torque (OT) Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) was measured experimentally on a real scale wind turbine emulator under steady wind conditions. It was found that for the passive Diode Rectifier (DR) configuration, the Annual Energy Production (AEP) estimation was (16-38%) lower than for the synchronous rectification strategy.