Control strategies for energy recovery from a flywheel using a vector controlled induction machine

This paper presents a novel control strategy for power smoothing in wind energy applications, especially those feeding a stand-alone load. The system is based on a vector controlled induction machine driving a flywheel and addresses the problem of regulating the DC-link system voltage against both input power surges/sags from a wind turbine or sudden changes in load demand. The control is based on a linearised or fuzzy controller augmented by a feedforward compensation scheme. Experimental results are presented which verify the excellent performance of the feedforward compensation technique.