Economic Model Predictive Control for Wind Turbine

For economic goals, power maximization and mechanical load minimization are quite important for variable-speed wind turbines in the modern wind energy industry. However, these turbines are generally non-linear and highly coupled non-affine systems. In this work, an economic model predictive control is proposed to guarantee the economical control operation, meanwhile, improves the closed-loop optimal performance. Based on the 5-MW NREL wind turbine reference model with considering the tower fore-aft motion, the proposed control scheme is compared with the classical MPC scheme based on stepwise wind speed variations. The simulations result indicates the proposed controller effectiveness over the classical MPC.