A Review on Switched Reluctance Generators in Wind Power Applications: Fundamentals, Control and Future Trends

Abstract

With the ever growing environmental concerns, renewable energy sources emerge as a promise of clean and abundant energy, enabling long-term sustainable development. In this context, wind power gained significant interest due to its relative low cost and availability. Switched reluctance generators (SRGs) are suitable candidates for wind energy conversion systems, as they present a simple structure, robustness, a wide range of speed and are capable of operating in harsh environments. The machine, however, poses challenges such as high torque ripple, acoustic noise production and highly nonlinear behavior. Nonetheless, with the use of adequate control strategies, high dynamic performance SRG-based wind energy conversion systems can be achieved. As a result, this article presents a state of the art review of SRGs in wind power applications. First, the fundamentals of the SRG are presented. Next, two categories of firing angle control are reviewed: optimization and closed-loop control. Then, voltage and power control strategies are discussed, being divided in model-independent and model-based approaches. After that, a review on grid-tied SRGbased wind energy conversion systems is carried out. The most common filter topologies as well as the employed control strategies are detailed. Lastly, an outline of the discussed topics is presented and future trends as well as suggestions for future investigation are listed.

A Review “The Research Status of Switched Reluctance Generator"

“…In Equation (1), Pe, Edc, and id denote the electrical power, dc link voltages, and dc link current, respectively. The review also discusses the challenges associated with SRGs and provides an outlook for future research and development.…”

“…In the structure of the rotor, permanent magnets are used, and there is no use of winding in the rotor. The winding is present on the slots of the station and for this reason, it has a high tolerance for faults [1].…”

Maximum Power Control and Optimization of Switched Reluctance Generators for Wind Turbines

“…Switched Reluctance Generators (SRGs) are simple electrical machines since they have a stator and rotor with salient poles and only windings on the stator, there are no windings or permanent magnets on the rotor [21]. Due to significant properties of the SRGs such as simple structure, robustness, low manufacturing and maintenance costs, high performance and working in the variable speed range, they are a proper candidate for the wind applications [22,23].…”

Multi-Objective Control Strategy for Switched Reluctance Generators in Small-Scale Wind Power Generations

“…However, due to its doubly-salient structure, the performance of SRM is sensitive to phase current trajectory. SRM presents some known drawbacks, such as nonlinear inductance, high current and torque ripple, and acoustic noise, have hindered the mass adoption of such machines [5][6][7]. Therefore, many scholars have conducted in-depth research on performance optimization for SRM.…”