Large Wind Turbine in Variable Speed Transition Operation: Adaptive Disturbance Tracking Control

The transition region control problem for wind turbines occurs while the wind speed varies from Region II to Region III and vice versa. This is the phase when both speed and torque must change separately to get the rated rotor speed and rated rotor torque when the wind speed reaches its rated value. Adaptive Disturbance Tracking Control (ADTC) theory was developed previously to track a desired Tip Speed Ratio (TSR) and hence optimize the power production in Region II of the wind turbine. In this paper we further extended this theory for transition region control, and present numerical results on a NREL’s 5 MW offshore turbine model.