Advanced Soft Stall Control for Protection of Small-Scale Wind Generation Systems

Extreme wind conditions, such as excessive wind speed and wind gusts, have posed control challenges for wind generation systems which lead to severe operation issues. Unlike large-scale systems where these extreme conditions can be ridden through with their enormous size and various regulation devices, the small-scale wind generation systems have to adapt to these extreme wind conditions with limit protection methods. In order to perform soft stall regulation on these small-scale systems while minimizing cost constraints, the soft stall methods implemented on power converters have found their position. In this article, a soft stall control algorithm is proposed to regulate a small-scale system during these extreme wind conditions. Comprehensive studies are first carried out to illustrate the major limitations and constraints of small-scale wind generation systems when operated in extreme wind conditions. Then, the proposed soft stall algorithm is developed with the consideration of these limitations. Detailed operation analysis, controller design procedure, simulation comparison, and experimental results have been presented in this article to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm.