Pitch angle optimization by intelligent adjusting the gains of a PI controller for small wind turbines in areas with drastic wind speed changes

Abstract

The population growth demands a greater generation of energy, an alternative is the use of small wind turbines, however, obtaining maximum wind power becomes the main challenge when there are drastic changes in wind speed. The angle of the blades rotates around its longitudinal axis to control the effect of the wind on the rotation of the turbine, a proportional-integral controller (PI) for this angle achieves stability and precision in a stable state but is not functional with severe alterations in wind speed, a different response time is necessary in both cases. This article proposes a novel pitch angle controller based on auto-tuning of PI gains, for which it uses a teaching-learning based optimization (TLBO) algorithm. The wind speed and the value of the magnitude of the change are used by the algorithm to determine the appropriate PI gains at different wind speeds, so it can adapt to any sudden change in wind speed. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by experimental results for a 14 KW permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) wind turbine located at the Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro (UAQ), Mexico.