Reducing rotor speed variations of floating wind turbines by compensation of non-minimum phase zeros

Abstract

Applying a land-based designed pitch controller on a floating wind turbine may cause severe instability. A common strategy to overcome this problem is to reduce the closed-loop bandwidth of the pitch control system. In doing so, the generator speed variation increases possibly leading to shutdowns because of overspeed. This study uses a parallel path modification to avoid instability without increasing the generator speed variation. The results of comprehensive simulations and load calculations carried out on a benchmark wind turbine are presented. These demonstrate that by using the proposed method it is possible to apply the land-based designed pitch controller on its floater-based equivalent. © 2013 The Institution of Engineering and Technology.