Modeling and control of floating wind turbines

Abstract

Due to the fast development of wind energy and exponential growing of installed wind turbines, the number of places with optimal wind conditions is limited and wind turbines are installed in the sea. For deep sea levels a concept known as floating offshore wind turbine has been developed. There are diverse types of turbines documented with different structures and ways of reaching stability. In this thesis the wind turbine spar buoy concept is analyzed, modeled and validated against FAST, an already developed and non linear complex model of a floating offshore wind turbine. In order to design a controller which guarantees the stable operation of the turbine and will achieve to obtain the maximum energy of it, different controllers are developed and used for this task. Finally the performance of the system with all the controllers is tested and compared.