Faulty wind farm simulation: An estimation/control-oriented model

Abstract

A large percentage of the electricity generation cost of wind turbines (WTs) is related to the operation and maintenance of the WTs. To reduce such costs, fault detection and isolation (FDI) and fault tolerant control (FTC) methods have become popular over the last decade, but most works focus on single WTs or WT subsystems. The present paper introduces a Simulink-based simulator able to simulate WT farms with the capacity to recreate different fault scenarios on the subsystems composing the WTs. The objective of the simulator is to be used by researchers to develop FDI and FTC strategies for wind farms. By way of example, the paper shows a case study illustrating the effects that different faults have on a wind farm.