We have investigated the reliability of more than 6000 modern onshore wind turbines and their subassemblies in Germany over 11 years and particularly changes in reliability of generators, gearboxes and converters in a subse Schleswig Holstein, Germany. We first start by considering the average failure rate of turbine populations and th failure rates of wind turbine subassemblies. This analysis yields some surprising results about which subassembl unreliable. Then we proceed to consider the failure intensity function variation with time for wind turbines in on populations, using the Power Law Process, of three subassemblies; generator, gearbox and converter. This analy turbine gearboxes seem to be achieving reliabilities similar to gearboxes outside the wind industry. However, win generators and converters are both achieving reliabilities considerably below that of other industries but the reli subassemblies improves with time. The paper also considers different wind turbine concepts. Then we conclude offshore wind turbines should be subject to more rigorous reliability improvement measures, such as more thor testing, to eliminate early failures. The early focus should be on converters and generators. Reliability of wind turbine subassemblies References (18) Cited By (214) Supplementary material (0) Keywords Related C Article

Publisher's copyright statement: c 2006 IEEE. This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder Personal use of this material is permitted.However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE. Additional information:Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Abstract-The objective of this paper is to compare five different generator systems for wind turbines, namely the doubly-fed induction generator with three-stage gearbox (DFIG3G), the directdrive synchronous generator with electrical excitation (DDSG), the direct-drive permanent-megnet generator (DDPMG), the permanent-magnet generator with single stage gearbox (PMG1G), and the doubly-fed induction generator with single-stage gearbox (DFIG1G). The comparison is based on cost and annual energy yield for a given wind climate. The DFIG3G is a cheap solution using standard components. The DFIG1G seems the most attractive in terms of energy yield divided by cost. The DDPMG has the highest energy yield, but although it is cheaper than the DDSG, it is more expensive than the generator systems with gearbox.

Condition monitoring (CM) has already been proven to be a cost effective means of enhancing reliability and improving customer service in power equipment, such as transformers and rotating electrical machinery. CM for power semiconductor devices in power electronic converters is at a more embryonic stage; however, as progress is made in understanding semiconductor device failure modes, appropriate sensor technologies, and signal processing techniques, this situation will rapidly improve. This technical review is carried out with the aim of describing the current state of the art in CM research for power electronics. Reliability models for power electronics, including dominant failure mechanisms of devices are described first. This is followed by a description of recently proposed CM techniques. The benefits and limitations of these techniques are then discussed. It is intended that this review will provide the basis for future developments in power electronics CM.

has been published in nal form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/we.1508. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving. Additional information:Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details.

Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Abstract-This paper analyzes the ability of a doubly fed induction generator (DFIG) in a wind turbine to ride through a grid fault and the limitations to its performance. The fundamental difficulty for the DFIG in ride-through is the electromotive force (EMF) induced in the machine rotor during the fault, which depends on the dc and negative sequence components in the stator-flux linkage and the rotor speed. The investigation develops a control method to increase the probability of successful grid fault ride-through, given the current and voltage capabilities of the rotor-side converter. A time-domain computer simulation model is developed and laboratory experiments are conducted to verify the model and a control method is proposed. Case studies are then performed on a representatively sized system to define the feasibility regions of successful ride-through for different types of grid faults.Index Terms-Current control, doubly fed induction generator (DFIG), flux linkage, grid fault, power converter, safe operating area (SOA), wind energy.