Laboratory setup with squirrel-cage motors for wind turbine emulation

The paper presents a laboratory setup to be used as a wind turbine emulator. The emulator can be used for research investigation by reproducing the mechanical torque developed by a wind turbine for a given wind speed and angular velocity, thus driving an electrical generator in a similar way to a wind turbine. Ensuring repeatable testing conditions allows for comparison of different wind turbine control algorithms. In the presentad solution, the turbine torque is reproduced by an AC drive with a squirrel cage motor coupled with the AC generator on the common shaft. A frequency converter that controls the emulator motor operates in the torque control mode. The command for the converter, proportional to the emulated instantaneous turbine torque, is calculated as the output from a wind turbine mathematical model running in the real time on PC in the Matlab-Simulink environment. Experimental results recorded for standardized wind gusts are presented.