Adaptive Contingency Control: Wind Turbine Operation Integrated with Blade Condition Monitoring

We report here on first steps towards integrating systems health monitoring with adaptive contingency controls. In the scenario considered, the adaptive controller receives specific information about damage to a blade and reacts to turbulent conditions where the blade might incur additional damage. The controller uses an observer to determine when the generator set point should be lowered, thereby causing the blades to be pitched at a lower wind speed. The loads on the blades are reduced when the blades are set at larger pitch angles. This is meant to decrease the damage propagation. The adaptive contingency controller can be tuned to find the optimal trade-off between maximized damage suppression and maximized power generation. Future work will address the assessment of blade health in the presence of turbulent wind conditions.