COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF FAULTS FROM STALL CONTROLLED WIND TURBINES WITH ASYNCHRONOUS GENERATORS AND PITCH CONTROLLED WIND TURBINES WITH SYNCHRONOUS GENERATORS

Abstract

A large number of wind turbines from different manufacturers have been installed worldwide. They have different operating principles and are designed according to the climatic conditions of the installation site. The objective of this study is to perform a comparative analysis of the behavior of the different types of internal and external failures, their frequency and their duration for different types of wind turbines. To accomplish this, data collected directly from the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system is used to monitor two wind farms installed in Soria (Spain). The study reveals the typical faults of each type of wind turbine. Synchronous wind turbines and wind turbines with variable-pitch blades experience more types of faults; however, the frequency and duration of faults are greater in wind turbines with fixed-pitch blades and asynchronous generators. Keywords: Wind turbine, stall control, pitch control, synchronous and asynchronous generators, faults, lost time.