Management and control strategy study for a new hybrid wind turbine system

Electrical power generation from wind energy has been recognized as one of major realistic energy sources in CO₂ emission reduction worldwide. However, matching power generation with the load demand remains a great challenge, due to the nature of wind energy intermittency. The paper addresses this issue by developing a new system with the structure of a hybrid connection of the wind turbine and compressed air energy storage. A scroll air motor is adopted to serve as an “air-electricity transformer” to compensate the power output during the period of low wind speed. The paper reports our study in developing a suitable management and control strategy for this hybrid system. The mathematical model for the whole hybrid system is derived in the paper. To achieve steady power output, a multi-mode process control strategy is proposed combined with fuzzy logical pitch control and PI air pressure control. The simulation study has demonstrated that the proposed new hybrid wind turbine system is feasible and has potential for industrial applications.