General Electric Company

Pranav Agarwal

Ameet Shridhar Deshpande

Mark Edward Cardinal

Darren John Danielsen

Samuel Davoust

Charudatta Subhash Mehendale

Venkata Krishna Vadlamudi

Govardhan Ganireddy

Samuel Bryan Shartzer

Thomas Stephen Markham

Arne Koerber

Bernard P Landa

Conner Brooks Shane

Ingo Paura

Xiongzhe Huang

Collin McKee Sheppard

Santiago Tomas

Prashanth Kumar Reddy Vaddi

Fabiano Daher Adegas

Nikolina Kourteva Kristeva

Jigar Jayesh Shah

Nora Cheng-Huei Han

Prashanth Reddy Vaddi

Francesc Xavier Sanz

Christopher Ryan Holsonback

A method for protecting a wind turbine from an extreme change in wind direction includes receiving a wind direction and/or a wind speed at the wind turbine. When a change in the wind direction or the wind speed exceeds a predetermined threshold, the method includes determining a margin to stall and/or zero lift of the at least one rotor blade of the wind turbine as a function of an angle of attack or change in the angle of attack at a blade span location of at least one rotor blade of the wind turbine. The method also includes implementing a corrective action for the wind turbine (without shutting down the wind turbine) when the margin to stall and/or zero lift exceeds a predetermined value so as to avoid stall and/or negative lift on the at least one rotor blade during operation of the wind turbine.

System and method for protecting wind turbines during extreme wind direction change

A method of operating a wind turbine and a method of determining fatigue in a wind turbine component are provided. The method of operating a wind turbine comprises determining a reference accumulated fatigue, determining an operational time, obtaining a partial load indicator, determining a real accumulated fatigue, comparing the real accumulated fatigue and the reference accumulated fatigue and controlling the operation of the wind turbine. The method of determining fatigue in a wind turbine component comprises determining an operational time, obtaining wind speed, obtaining turbulence intensity, determining a time for each combination of wind speed and turbulence intensity and determining a real accumulated fatigue. In a further aspect, this is also provided a wind turbine controller configured to perform any of the methods herein disclosed.

Methods of operating a wind turbine

A wind turbine includes a wind turbine rotor and rotor blades mounted on the rotor, at least one sensing device disposed on the wind turbine for measuring a first signal representative of a first wind speed at a first distance from the wind turbine rotor and a second signal representative of a second wind speed at a second distance from the wind turbine rotor. The wind turbine system includes a blade pitch actuator for adjusting a pitch of the rotor blades and a generator controller for adjusting a voltage of a wind turbine generator. The wind turbine system also includes a control unit in communication with the blade pitch actuator and the generator controller, the control unit being used for controlling the wind turbine via the blade pitch actuator and the generator controller based on an induction factor derived from the first and second signals.

Induction controlled wind turbine

The present disclosure is directed to a method for estimating tower loads, such as tower deflection, of a wind turbine. The method includes receiving an estimate of slow variations in thrust of a tower of the wind turbine. The method also includes determining, via one or more sensors, tower accelerations of the tower of the wind turbine. Thus, the method also includes estimating the tower loads of the wind turbine as a function of the estimate of slow variations in thrust of the tower and the tower accelerations.

System and method for estimating high bandwidth tower deflection for wind turbines

A method for controlling loads of a wind turbine includes receiving sensor signals from one or more sensors being indicative of a movement of a nacelle of the wind turbine from a reference point. More particularly, the movement corresponds, at least, to a tilt and/or a displacement of the wind turbine tower and/or nacelle. The method also includes generating a deflection profile of the tower along its overall length from a bottom end to a top end thereof based on the sensor signals. Further, the method includes determining at least one of a thrust or a tower load of the wind turbine from the deflection profile. In addition, the method includes implementing a control action for the wind turbine based on the thrust and/or the tower load.

System and method for controlling thrust and/or tower loads of a wind turbine

A wind turbine system is presented. The wind turbine system includes a wind turbine comprising a plurality of blades and a tower, and a processing subsystem configured to shut down the wind turbine by non-linearly pitching out the plurality of blades in the wind turbine towards a feather position at a pitch rate determined based upon a tower-fore-aft velocity of a top-portion of the tower during oscillations of the tower.

Methods and systems to shut down a wind turbine

A wind turbine system is presented. The wind turbine system includes a wind turbine tower, a plurality of blades, a rotor supported by the wind turbine tower and rotatably coupled to the plurality of blades, a torque control device coupled to the rotor, and a control system programmed to predict an over-speeding time T of an occurrence of an over-speed rotor event based at least in part upon a current rotor acceleration and a current rotor speed, that cannot be compensated by an available counter-torque margin of the torque control device, and, in response, to generate pitch commands for the pitch angles of the plurality of blades to avoid the over-speed rotor event.

Methods and systems to operate a wind turbine system

The present disclosure is directed to a method for controlling a wind turbine having a rotor with a plurality of rotor blades mounted thereto based on a spatial wind speed distribution. The method includes monitoring, via at least one sensor, one or more operating conditions of the wind turbine. The method also includes determining a rotor azimuth angle of the wind turbine. In addition, the method includes determining, via a physics-based model, at least one individual wind speed for one or more of the rotor blades of the wind turbine based on the one or more operating conditions and the rotor azimuth angle. The method also includes determining a spatial wind speed distribution of the wind turbine based on the at least one individual wind speed. Thus, the method further includes controlling the wind turbine based on the spatial wind speed distribution.

System and method for controlling a wind turbine

A control method and a control system for a wind turbine are disclosed. The control method comprises measuring wind turbine blade pitch angles; obtaining a wind turbine rotor acceleration value; determining whether a blade pitch runaway fault condition is occurring; and during the blade pitch runaway fault condition, adjusting a pitch angle command based at least in part on the rotor acceleration value, a pitch angle of at least one faulted blade and a pitch angle of a healthy blade; and controlling wind turbine blades based at least in part on the adjusted pitch angle command.

Control method and system for wind turbine

A method and a system for managing loads on a wind turbine are provided. The computer-implemented method is implemented using a processor coupled to a memory device. The method includes determining a first moment of a wind load acting about a first axis of a rotor of the wind turbine, determining a second moment of a wind load acting about a second axis of a rotor of the wind turbine, and determining a resultant moment of the first moment and the second moment. The method also includes generating an error signal indicating a difference between the resultant moment and a predetermined moment level threshold signal and generating, by the processor, a first activation signal over a range of the generated error signal between a first zero activation signal level and a first full activation signal level.

Method and system for managing loads on a wind turbine

A wind turbine includes wind turbine blades, a wind turbine rotor coupled to the wind turbine blades, a wind turbine generator coupled to the wind turbine rotor, a wind turbine converter coupled to the wind turbine generator, a controllable brake comprising one or more sources of controllable rotor torque adjustment for providing a first level of torque adjustment, a discrete brake for more coarsely providing a second level of torque adjustment, and a controller programmed for responding to a deceleration event by determining a required torque adjustment for braking, determining a sequence of applying the controllable brake and the discrete brake for driving a combination of the first and second levels of torque adjustment towards the required torque adjustment, and providing control signals for decelerating the wind turbine.

Wind turbine deceleration method and system

A method and a system for managing loads on a wind turbine are provided. The method includes receiving a signal relative to a yaw misalignment of the wind turbine, generating a yaw error signal based on the yaw misalignment, and comparing the yaw error signal to a first predetermined yaw error threshold value. The method also includes regulating a speed of the rotor to a value determined by a predetermined tip speed ratio, reducing the yaw misalignment using a yaw control system, and restarting the wind turbine if the yaw error signal is reduced to less than a second predetermined yaw error threshold value within a predetermined period of time. The method further includes shutting down the wind turbine if the yaw error signal remains greater than the second predetermined yaw error threshold value beyond the predetermined period of time.

Systems and methods to reduce tower oscillations in a wind turbine are presented. The method includes obtaining a rotor velocity. Furthermore, the method includes obtaining one or more parameters associated with a tower of the wind turbine. Further, the method includes determining a modified rotor velocity based on the one or more parameters. Moreover, the method includes determining a first pitch angle based on the modified rotor velocity. In addition, the method includes pitching one or more blades of the wind turbine based on the first pitch angle to reduce the tower oscillations.

Systems and methods to reduce tower oscillations in a wind turbine

A wind turbine system is presented. The wind turbine system includes a tower, a plurality of blades, a rotor supported by the tower and rotatably coupled to the plurality of blades, a control unit programmed to predict a net energy of the tower at one or more future points in time, and if the predicted net energy is within a design limit, then continue with baseline operating control models for normal operation of the wind turbine system, if the predicted net energy exceeds the design limit, then use a non-linear tower damping model to generate tower damping commands to control tower damping of the wind turbine system.

Methods and systems to operate a wind turbine system using a non-linear damping model

A wind turbine system, comprising a tower, a plurality of blades, a rotor supported by the tower and rotatably coupled to the plurality of blades, a pitch control device for regulating pitch angles of the plurality of blades, a torque control device for regulating torque of the rotor, a processing subsystem programmed to slow down the wind turbine system by using the torque control device alone to slow down the rotor when the torque control device is fully capable of slowing down the rotor, and using both the torque control device and the pitch control device to slow down the rotor when the torque control device alone is not fully capable of slowing down the rotor.

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Guilderland, NY, United States of America

Pranav Agarwal