Load mitigation of unbalanced wind turbines using PI-R individual pitch control

This study discusses the load mitigation of unbalanced wind turbines, including balanced and unbalanced loads. Regarding the wind turbine load reduction, it has been shown that individual pitch control (IPC) is more promising in comparison with collective pitch control. However, wind turbine unbalance will cause extra loads and fatigue on the wind turbine rotor, which has not been taken into consideration by the traditional IPC method. This study presents a new control strategy to mitigate the loads of the unbalance wind turbines. An IPC scheme consisting of a proportional-integral (PI) controller and two resonant (R) compensators is presented. The PI-R regulator is implemented in the hub reference frame to reduce both the balanced and unbalanced loads of the turbine. The wind turbine code FAST (fatigue, aerodynamics, structures and turbulence) is used for the wind turbine load modelling. The simulations are conducted on the NREL upwind 1.5 MW wind turbine model. Elimination of both the balanced and unbalanced loads of the wind turbine has been achieved, so that PI-R IPC is demonstrated as an effective means for load mitigation of unbalanced wind turbines.