Design of an Open Loop Wind Power Emulator for Analyzing the Performance of Wind Energy Conversion System

A wind turbine emulator (WTE) is a significant equipment for developing wind energy conversion systems. It is very convenient for laboratories that do not have a wind tunnel together with a real wind turbine for performance testing of wind energy generator and control systems. In addition, it provides a controllable test environment for the evaluation and development of control schemes for electric generators which are challenging to achieve with an actual wind turbine due to the random variation in wind speed. This paper presents the design and development of a Wind Turbine Emulator for evaluating and analyzing the performance of Wind Energy Conversion Systems and its performance verification through PSIM simulation environment. The WTE includes DC voltage source, a power resistor and a separately excited DC motor. For a given wind speed, the motor power-speed curve resembles a wind turbine power curve. Various simulation tests have been performed on the proposed WTE where the change in mechanical power at different wind speed cases are examined by adjusting input voltage. In addition, the relationship between permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) speed and the output power is analyzed by changing the duty cycle of the boost converter, while the other parameters are kept constant. The design of the system offers a wide range of flexibility and a pleasant indoor laboratory environment where wind speed and turbine parameters can be easily controlled.