Design fabrication and analysis of switched reluctance generator for variable speed wind power generation

Abstract

Power generation and consumption is ever increasing by all means. To meet the energy requirement, importing and mining of local coal for thermal power plants cannot support forever. Developed countries employ atomic, hydro, thermal and fossil fuel based generation as well as renewable energy sources like wind, solar, hydro, geo-thermal and biomass based power plants to meet the power demand. In the current scenario, contribution of wind energy becomes inevitable, and inexhaustible. Existing systems are operated only at moderate speed. If operated at very low speed and very high speed, the system starts malfunctioning. Hence the motivation of the research work is to provide proper solution for the limitation in the existing system. This work proposes Switched Reluctance Machine based wind energy conversion system that is able to operate at variable speeds and extend major support to the grid for clean and green energy. Initially, Switched Reluctance Machine is operated as a motor until it achieves enough speed to act as a generator. The absence of permanent magnet and rotor windings aids in the high speed operation as well as perfect speed control of the machine suitable for wind power generation. Variable voltage of the generator depends on speed of the rotor which is proportional to the velocity of the wind. A new sensorless rotor position estimation based on flux current control method using Linear Regression Technique is simulated using MATLAB / SIMULINK for an 8/6 pole machine and rotor position error is corrected by Fuzzy Logic Controller based error corrector. Once the position of the rotor is estimated, the speed of the motor is calculated. The same is implemented using Digital Signal Processor TMS320F2812. Simulation and experimental results are compared for various rotor position estimationsThe speed control for Switched Reluctance Motor using PID controller is designed, simulated using MATLAB/ SIMULINK and the results are verified against experimental results for motor settling time. The ripple f