Energetic Macroscopic Representation and Inversion-Based Control Illustrated on a Wind-Energy-Conversion System Using Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation

Study of a wind-energy-conversion system (WECS) is a very attractive topic for students. The analysis of an entire WECS requires knowledge of different scientific fields, which are of interest for future engineers. In this paper, energetic macroscopic representation is used to describe a complete WECS. This synthetic graphical tool yields a natural decomposition of the studied WECS with respect to physical laws. Moreover, a control scheme is easily deduced from this description using inversion-based rules. Thus, maximum-power point-tracking strategies and drive controls can be defined. The simulation of the studied WECS is directly transposed to Matlab-Simulink. Moreover, a hardware-in-the-loop simulation of the WECS is studied using an actual induction generator and an electrical drive to simulate the wind turbine. This graphical methodology is used in the electrical engineering Masters degree at the University of Lille (France).