A fast maximum power point tracking strategy based on variable structure control for wind energy application

Nowadays, the wind energy due to its substantial advantages over fossil fuel based energy sources and other renewable energy sources, is growing significantly. In order to have a profitable and efficient wind energy harvesting system, wind turbines should continuously operate at maximum power point under wind velocity variations. This paper proposes a very fast and high-efficient Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) control method for variable speed wind turbines. This control strategy possess a variable structure based on sliding mode control and could be simply implemented on a Wind Energy Generation System (WEGS). The main components of a WEGS are introduced and detailed theoretical analyses are presented. The verification of the theoretic analysis is done through simulating a 2.7 MW variable-speed PMSG based WEGS being controlled by the proposed controller.