Renewable Wind Energy: A Review of Control Strategies for Renewable Wind Energy

Renewable energy is gaining interest worldwide with researchers due to the limitations in the use of fossil fuel. The annual rise in global population leads to an increase in the demand for power which cannot be resolved using fossil fuels only. Moreover, emissions from fossil fuels causes negative effects to the immediate environment and global climate, so there is a need for long term sustainable solutions to these issues. Renewable energy resources have shown great potential in the mitigation of these concerns as it produces negligible carbon emission, has an unlimited reserve, and shows an encouraging level in ease of sustainability. Wind energy is one of the renewable energy sources which is important due to its high potential in terms of energy output per capital cost of implementation. Wind energy technology can be in form of conventional wind turbines (WT) and airborne wind energy systems (AWES), of which both systems require some modern control strategies to harness maximum wind power and energy. This paper discusses various existing control strategies and some methodologies for improving the control features of such systems, with emphasis on the controller type, aim of the control strategy, results obtained and gaps in the approaches that have been proposed. This study shows the robustness, importance and high level of research delivered by control engineering in renewable energy systems. Lastly, the challenges faced in the implementation of these systems are discussed and recommendations to mitigate the challenges are proposed.