Improving the efficiency of a wind turbine system using a fuzzy-pid controller

Abstract

In the current era, due to the energy shortage problems and economic problems that the humans face, the world has been looking for the alternatives of fossil fuels, and wind driven energy systems have been turning attention as a better electricity source. Wind turbine blades bear different types of loads such as aerodynamic loads, gravitational loads and centrifugal loads. These loads cause aerodynamic fatigue and vibration in blades, which leads to degradation of the rotor blades and thereby reducing the efficiency of the wind turbine system. This can be over-come by using a good pitch controller (PC) which will tune the attack angle of a wind turbine rotor blade into or out of the wind. In this paper, a pitch angle control strategy based on the fuzzy logic control is proposed to cope with the nonlinear characteristics of wind turbine as well as to reduce the loads on the blades. A mathematical model of wind turbine (pitch control system) is developed and is tested with Fuzzy-PID Controller and conventional PID Controller. After comparing the proposed strategy, the simulation results show that the Fuzzy-PID logic controller has better response in controlling the wind turbine pitch system through rejecting the disturbances and correcting uncertain factors associated with the system. Hence improving the efficiency of the wind turbine by controlling the pitch angle.