Proposal of Grid-Connected Small Wind Turbine Simulator Based on Aeroelastic Dynamic Modeling

Under a current system, small wind turbines grid-connected are not evaluated efficiently. It leads to problems such as price increase. We developed an experimental simulator for small wind turbine with grid-connection for the evaluation. The requirements of this system are to simulate torque and electric power in a laboratory according to various wind conditions. In this study we use NREL’s FAST, which calculates wind power based on BEM (Blade Element and Momentum theory) for controlling the simulator. For the simulation, an AC motor was connected to a generator of a real wind turbine. The same torque as wind calculated by FAST was given on the connecting shaft by the motor. The simulator enabled the generator to produce electric power like the wind turbine in the field. The results by this simulator well agreed with results only by FAST at constant wind speed. When the wind speed changes we must consider each moment of inertia of each experiment part such as the connecting shaft. We estimated the momentum of inertia of this system and considered the influence on testing results such as rotational speeds. Moreover by comparing the tests in the field the accuracy of this simulation is verified.