Review of Contemporary Wind Turbine Concepts and Their Market Penetration

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to investigate the market penetration and share of different wind turbine concepts during the years 1998–2002, a period when the increase in the wind power capacity is starting to mark an abrupt evolution (more than two GW per year). A detailed overview is performed based on suppliers market data and concept evaluation for each individual wind turbine type sold by the Top Ten suppliers over the selected five years. The investigation is processing information on a total number of approximately 90 wind turbine types from 13 different manufacturers, which have been on the Top Ten list of wind turbine suppliers during 1998 to 2002. The analysis is based on very comprehensive data, which cover approximately 76% of the accumulated world wind power installed at the end of 2002. The paper also provides an overall perspective on the contemporary wind turbine concepts, classified with respect to both their speed control ability and to their power control type. Trends for wind turbine concepts are discussed.

Power electronics and controls for wind turbine systems

“…The development in wind turbine systems has been steady for the last 35 years [4]- [36] where four to five generations of wind turbines have been developed and the power capacity has increased by a factor of 100. In a wind turbine it is essential to be able to control and limit the converted mechanical power at higher wind speeds, as the power in the wind is a cube of the wind speed.…”

“…Nowadays, the most attractive concept seemed to be the variable speed wind turbine with pitch control [4]- [23]. Still some manufacturers are providing the 'classical' active stall, fixed speed turbines especially for countries where the grid codes do not demand dynamic reactive power control (presently e.g.…”

“…The wind turbine technology is the most promising renewable energy technology [4]- [13]. It started in the 1980's with a few tens of kW production power per unit to today with multi-MW size wind turbines that are being installed.…”

“…It has been discussed for several years but now the price pr. produced kWh is so low, that solutions with power electronics are very attractive [4]- [36].…”

Dynamic Analysis of a Novel Geared Infinitely Variable Transmission

“…To achieve the maximum efficiency of a wind turbine, the speed of the blades varies with the wind speed. Some types of wind turbines use traditional transmissions to transmit the wind energy to generators [7]. By using these types of transmissions, wind energy cannot be extracted from variable wind speeds, since the generators must rotate at a constant speed, and the wind energy efficiency is low.…”