Steady Power Output in Wind Turbines

Coordinated operation of clusters of wind turbines to improve performance and reliability. The system involves synchronizing turbine operation, braking, and power generation to optimize the cluster as a whole. It involves coordinating turbine loading, blade phase, and braking to balance power output, prevent damage, and conform with grid requirements. The cluster is treated as a single system with coordinated control to leverage benefits of clustering like aerodynamic coupling.

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Vertical axis wind turbine with blades that precisely and simultaneously adjust their angle of attack throughout a full rotation based on the relative wind direction. This provides maximum lift at all times for optimal power generation compared to fixed blade angles. The blade angle adjustment mechanism uses a wind vane to observe wind direction and adjusts each blade's angle accordingly. This improves efficiency compared to horizontal axis turbines that can't change blade angles during rotation.

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Stabilizing wind turbines using tether cables attached to an intermediate interface module between the lower and upper sections of the tower. The module has ears that connect to the cables and bores aligned with the tower section through-holes. Threaded fasteners secure the module to the lower section. This allows tensioning the cables before attaching the upper section. The cables stabilize the tower by providing additional load support beyond the tower's self-weight. The module provides a convenient attachment point for the cables and avoids tower modifications.

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Balancing a wind turbine rotor without permanent weight additions or removal by using temporary weight balancing cartridges that can be easily inserted and removed from the blade tip. The method involves detecting rotor imbalance, calculating required counterweight, manufacturing custom cartridges with that weight, inserting them into the blade tips, and then removing them after balancing is achieved. This allows dynamic balancing without modifying the blade structure or causing long-term imbalance issues.

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Bypass seamless switching apparatus that allows uninterrupted power transfer and voltage regulation when the main control system fails or is disconnected. The bypass circuit has its own power supply and relays that can be switched by the main controller. When the main controller fails, the bypass circuit's power supply can drive the bypass switch to short-circuit, providing a low-voltage bypass path. This prevents open circuits and voltage spikes when the main system is disconnected. The bypass switch can also be switched by the main controller when the bypass is needed but not in failure mode.

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Optimizing wind turbine power generation by allowing the rotor speed to exceed the rated speed during mild wind conditions when the loading is below a threshold. This enables closer following of the ideal power/speed trajectory for higher power output compared to constant speed operation. The method involves checking if loading is low when the rotor is near rated speed, and increasing rotor speed if so. This avoids excessive loading during calm periods and allows more power extraction. The speed boost is determined based on the wind turbine's power/speed curve.

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A generator for clean, renewable, and sustainable power generation that uses a flywheel to stabilize power output from intermittent renewable sources like wind turbines. The generator has a machine device with a drive shaft, a flywheel connected to the shaft, a stator, and a rotor. The flywheel spins the rotor in one direction to eliminate magnetic flux friction and lighten the rotor load. The rotor can be a flywheel to help stabilize power output during load changes. The stator has a winding with field coils and the rotor has magnets. Cross magnetic field excitation between stator and rotor generates electricity. The flywheel stabilizes rotor speed and helps maintain power output during load changes.

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Wind turbine design to increase power output by accelerating wind speed around the turbine. The key idea is to use nacelle shape modifications to create a Venturi effect that pulls surrounding air into the turbine's wake and increases the speed of the wind flowing over the blades. The nacelle has a contracting cross-section from the inlet to the turbine location, then an expanding section from the turbine to the outlet. This forces surrounding air to accelerate into the turbine's wake, compensating for the wind speed drop caused by the turbine itself. Additional features like dispersion shapes at the outlet and wind inlet gaps between nacelles further enhance the effect.

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Windmill and wind power generation apparatus with improved rotation efficiency. The windmill has a blade with front and rear edges, a shaft, and a supporting member connecting the blade and shaft. The supporting member extends radially and intersects the blade chord line at the rear edge midpoint. This configuration balances centrifugal forces on the blade during rotation. It allows the blade to be supported without added weight or complex mechanisms. The blade rotation energy is more efficiently converted into power.

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Controlling output power of a generator with multiple circuits to improve utilization and avoid overloading. The method involves finding a control variable based on generator voltage, target circuit voltage and current, overload reference, and circuit reference. This variable is used to regulate the target circuit power when the generator is overloaded. The regulation improves generator utilization by reducing target circuit power when generator is overloaded, versus shutting off circuits or using slow communication. The control variable relies only on local circuit parameters, not other circuit data, for faster response.

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Wind turbine frequency regulation using a combination of the rotor, energy storage, and pitch control to improve response time and stability. The method involves first increasing power using the rotor's feedforward-feedback control. Then, for a limited time, add power from the storage and/or pitch. Afterward, use storage and/or pitch alone to maintain power stability. This allows faster response using rotor control, while avoiding grid power fluctuations when rotor control ends. It's applicable to wind turbines where rotor speed can be adjusted.

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Optimizing torque-current ratio control in permanent magnet generators used in wind power systems. The method involves calculating initial active and reactive current references, then searching for optimal values based on a torque-current ratio target to correct for parameter deviations. This allows precise optimal torque per ampere control even as generator parameters change during operation.

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Controlling a renewable energy power plant like a wind farm to prevent instability and control faults when the measured power characteristics oscillate at high frequencies. The method involves detecting undersampled oscillations in the power measurements due to the control system's sample rate being too low. If undersampling is detected, it switches to a fault mode of operation instead of normal control. In the fault mode, it implements a bumpless transfer to smoothly transition the power setpoints to a new target level that allows the power plant to operate stably with the high-frequency oscillations. This prevents amplifying the oscillations and exacerbating control faults.

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A mud floating offshore wind turbine system that can operate in harsh marine environments by preventing displacement and rollover. The system has multiple suction anchors below the turbine foundation and gravity anchors on the sides. The suction anchors adjust turbine height and vertical stability, while the gravity anchors tensioned chains restrain lateral displacement. This dual anchor setup allows vertical and horizontal positioning control to prevent turbine disengagement and rollover in harsh seas.

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Intelligent battery storage for wind turbines that can balance grid power and provide backup power. The battery storage has controllable battery cells with switches. A controller regulates voltage by selectively bypassing cells or routing current through them based on error between desired and measured grid current. This allows optimizing cell usage and balancing charge/discharge.

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Power system with multiple inverters operating in parallel that can provide good control of self-sustaining operation. Each inverter measures its own output power and sends it to a central monitoring device. The monitoring device calculates total power and distributes targets to each inverter based on their capacities. It also calculates voltage commands for each inverter. The inverters use these commands to independently control their outputs while maintaining proper power distribution. This allows parallel operation of distributed power sources without potential and phase issues.

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Data-driven wind farm frequency control method using dynamic mode decomposition to enable high-rate wind power sites to participate in grid frequency response. The method involves decomposing the nonlinear wind turbine dynamics into linear modes using dynamic mode decomposition. This allows capturing the inherent modes in a low-dimensional space that can be represented as linear dynamics in a higher-dimensional space. This reduced, linearized wind turbine model provides a more accurate and flexible control solution compared to segmental fitting methods. The wind farm frequency optimization control uses this linearized model to calculate optimal frequency adjustments for the wind turbines.

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A method for controlling renewable energy power plants to prevent instability when the grid frequency oscillates rapidly. The method involves detecting undersampled oscillations in the measured power characteristic due to high frequency grid faults. When such oscillations are detected, the power plant controller switches to a fault mode of operation instead of using the normal mode. The fault mode involves determining power setpoints based on the sampled measurements and target level, but implementing a bumpless transfer operation to smoothly transition between target levels. This prevents sudden changes in power level that can amplify oscillations and cause instability.

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Power generation forecasting in a microgrid using text mining and feature engineering to improve accuracy by considering weather events that affect generation even if they're not currently occurring. The method involves extracting weather events like snow or heavy wind from historical data, determining component conditions based on those events, and forecasting generation using the conditioned components. This accounts for weather events that obstruct generation even if they're past. The events are categorized and their parameters used in forecasting models to better predict generation when components are obstructed.

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Optimizing power output of multi-rotor wind turbines by accurately aligning the rotors with the wind. The method involves measuring the wind power parameter (Pw) for each rotor nacelle assembly at multiple relative wind directions. It finds the maximum Pw for each nacelle and averages them to get an optimal control wind direction. The yaw system is then controlled based on that optimal direction to align the rotors with the wind for maximum combined power.

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