Experimental Results of a DC Bus Voltage Level Control for a Load-Controlled Marine Current Energy Converter

Energies

Johan Forslund¹  Staffan Lundin¹  Karin Thomas¹  Mats Leijon¹ 

[1] Department of Engineering Sciences, Uppsala University, P.O. box 534, 751 21 Uppsala, Sweden; E-Mails:

关键词: marine current energy converter;    control system;    VACT;    PMSG;    load control;   

DOI  :  10.3390/en8054572

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

This paper investigates three load control methods for a marine current energy converter using a vertical axis current turbine (VACT) mounted on a permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG). The three cases are; a fixed AC load, a fixed pulse width modulated (PWM) DC load and DC bus voltage control of a DC load. Experimental results show that the DC bus voltage control reduces the variations of rotational speed by a factor of 3.5 at the cost of slightly increased losses in the generator and transmission lines. For all three cases, the tip speed ratio λ can be kept close to the expected λ_opt. The power coefficient is estimated to be 0.36 at λ_opt; however, for all three cases, the average extracted power was about ∼ 19%. A maximum power point tracking (MPPT) system, with or without water velocity measurement, could increase the average extracted power.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.