Adel. Y. Tawfik, Ahmed. S. Nafey, Faculty of Engineering
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Suez University, Suez, Egypt.
Mohamed E. Abo El Maaty, Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering
Department of Engineering Science, Suez University, Suez, Egypt.
Model Predictive Controller for Performance Enhancement of Extracting Maximum Power for Variable Speed Wind Turbine
Authors
Abstract
Wind energy gains increasing importance around the world. The efficiency and the
energy conversion system are improved due to the advancement of variable speed drive
design and control of wind energy systems. For the wind turbine systems, Maximum Power
Point Tracking (MPPT) plays an essential role in achieving efficient conversion of energy.
The MPPT strategy controls the rotor speed by adjusting electromagnetic torque and
maximizing the generator's output power. This paper evaluates applying the Proportional-
Integral (PI) Controller and the interested Model Predictive Controller (MPC) on two
different control strategies to fulfill MPPT of variable speed wind turbines using the Direct
Speed Measurement method and Pitch Angle Control technique. The Matlab Simulink is
applied for optimizing and implementing these two control methods. The results are
investigated to compare the performance of the controllers employed with the wind turbine
under different operating conditions. The obtained results show that our controller (MPC)
presents better performance with the direct speed measurement and the pitch angle control
system.