General Electric Company

James M Nowak

Paul M Espelage

David Grey Smith

Robert Gregory Wagoner

Allen Michael Ritter

Robert Allen Seymour

Fred Henry Boettner

David L Lippitt

Terry Michael Tackman

William Duggan Brackman, Jr

Eugene Filmore Kea

Fei (Fred) Wang

The present subject matter is directed to a system and method for controlling an electrical component, e.g. a power bridge, of a wind turbine using contingency communications. In one embodiment, the method includes receiving, by the electrical component, a standard set of commands for a first time frame. A next step includes receiving, by the electrical component, one or more contingency sets of commands for time frames beyond the first time frame. The method also includes determining if the standard set of commands is received within a start window of the first time frame. A further step includes implementing, by the electrical component, the standard set of commands during the first time frame if the standard set of commands is received within the start window. The method also includes implementing, by the electrical component, one of the contingency sets of commands received during a previous time frame if the standard set of commands is not received within the start window.

System and method of controlling an electronic component of a wind turbine using contingency communications

A voltage transient suppression circuit for power electronic circuits comprising: a snubber circuit having a resistor and a first and second capacitive element connected in series with a switching power semiconductor; and a sensing logic device connected in parallel with the snubber circuit; the logic circuit being configured to receive voltage signals indicative of said first and second capacitive elements.

Snubber circuit

A multilevel voltage source inverter and related control scheme in which a VSI controller operates in a low frequency mode of operation below a threshold operating frequency to more evenly distribute the duty cycle and thermal loss of the VSI switches. The technique makes use of multiple alternative switching states which achieve the same output voltage.

Multilevel PWM voltage source inverter control at low output frequencies

An induction motor drive including a current source inverter system having controlled turn on and turn off semiconductors in a load side inverter selectively places notches in the waveshape of the current supplied to the parallel combination of the motor and a capacitor bank for the minimization of harmonics.

Method and apparatus for induction motor drive

A power conditioner having a source and load converter each using a phase-locked loop to control their respective converter firings achieves synchronization with a supply mains by determining the phase error between supply mains and motor voltages by obtaining the instantaneous difference between the output signals of the source and load phase locked loops. This phase error is passed through a simple gain and summed with a speed regulator setpoint, which now becomes an inverter frequency regulator with the nominal setpoint being the supply mains frequency. The voltage amplitude error between the supply mains and the motor is obtained by comparing the absolute value of the source voltage with the properly scaled absolute value of the integrated motor voltage and this error signal is input to the flux regulator in a synchronous or induction motor controller in place of the normal input when not synchronizing.

Control for bumpless transfer of an AC motor between a solid-state

A single microcomputer controls the firing time determination for two independent current regulators for two six pulse AC/DC converters which are part of a twelve pulse parallel controlled current inverter (CCI) AC motor drive. A very short high priority interrupt occurs when a motor channel source converter thyristor fires. This interrupt calls a longer, low priority current regulator interrupt informing it that a master channel source converter thyristor has just been fired. The current regulator causes a count to be loaded into a master fire counter and also loads a firing mask into a hardware latch or buffer. When the master fire counter times out the next thyristor pair of the master channel source converter is fired directly out of hardware. Similarly, there is a separate slave channel fire counter loaded after the current regulator is called by a short high priority interrupt when a thyristor in the slave channel source converter fires.

Twelve pulse AC motor drive

A method of starting an AC motor from any initial speed using open loop control is provided. Sufficient current is provided to the motor so that motor flux can be developed. The frequency provided to the AC motor is varied and the stator frequency at which the motor peak flux occurs is determined. A transition to a control responsive to an external command at approximately the stator frequency at which the peak flux occurred is made.

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Roanoke, VA, United States of America

James M Nowak