Contingency Autonomous Yaw Control for Wind Turbines
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Wind turbines face increased loads and component wear due to yaw misalignment when the controller is offline, especially during adverse weather or maintenance, leading to reduced efficiency and shortened machine life.
Innovation Solution
A contingency autonomous yaw control system with redundant components and a protective control strategy that isolates failed units, ensuring continuous operation by redistributing loads and using auxiliary power supplies, energy storage, and distributed I/O modules to maintain alignment with wind direction.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the controller is taken offline for maintenance or during adverse weather events, then the controller can be serviced or the turbine can withstand extreme conditions, but the yaw system cannot operate leading to increased asymmetric loads and component wear
Solution Approach 1:
The control system is segmented into multiple independent controllers (primary controller and secondary controller) that can operate autonomously. When the primary controller is offline, the secondary controller takes over to maintain yaw control, preventing asymmetric loads while allowing the primary controller to remain offline for maintenance or during adverse weather events.
Solution Approach 2:
A protective control strategy acts as an intermediary between the offline controller and the yaw system. This intermediary layer detects controller offline status and automatically activates backup control mechanisms to maintain proper nacelle alignment with the wind direction, thereby preventing harmful asymmetric loads during controller unavailability.
2Reliability
If redundant yaw drive mechanisms and power supplies are added to ensure continuous operation during component failures, then the system maintains reliability and reduces component wear, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple yaw drive mechanisms share a common auxiliary power supply rather than each having dedicated power supplies. This merging approach reduces the total number of components while maintaining redundancy - if one yaw drive fails, the auxiliary power supply can support the remaining drives to continue operation.
Solution Approach 2:
The auxiliary power supply is pre-configured and tested during normal operation to ensure it can take over immediately upon primary power failure. This preliminary preparation allows the system to maintain reliability during component failures without requiring complex real-time decision-making or additional control logic.
3Productivity
If the system continuously monitors and autonomously responds to component failures to maintain operation, then the productivity and efficiency are maintained, but the control system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The protective control strategy implements self-service by autonomously detecting component failures and activating backup systems without requiring external intervention or complex decision-making algorithms. The system monitors its own status and automatically responds to failures, maintaining productivity while keeping the control logic relatively simple and straightforward.
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
AI summary
A yaw system 70 of a wind turbine 10 having contingency autonomous control capabilities includes a plurality of yaw system 70 components configured to change an angle of a nacelle 16 of the wind turbine 10 relative to an incoming wind direction 66. The plurality of yaw system components includes an auxiliary power supply 72 comprising a brake power control device 74, a braking unit 76 coupled to the brake power control device 74, at least two energy storage devices 84,86 coupled to the braking unit 78, a plurality of yaw drive mechanisms 40 communicatively coupled to the auxiliary power supply 72 via a communication link 92, and a controller 26 configured to implement a protective control strategy for the yaw system 70 in response to one of the yaw system components experiencing a failure. Each of the yaw drive mechanisms 70 includes a yaw power control device 75.