Experimental Results of a DC Bus Voltage Level Control for a Load-Controlled Marine Current Energy Converter

• This paper investigates three load control methods for a  marine current energy converter using a vertical axis current  turbine (VACT) mounted on a permanent magnet synchronous generator  (PMSG). The three cases are; a fixed AC load, a fixed pulse width  modulated (PWM) DC load and DC bus voltage control of a DC  load. Experimental results show that the DC bus voltage control  reduces the variations of rotational speed by a factor of 3.5 at the cost  of slightly increased losses in the generator and transmission lines.  For all three cases, the tip speed ratio   can be kept close to  the expected    . The power coefficient is estimated to be  0.36 at    ; however, for all three cases, the average  extracted power was about  \%. A maximum power point  tracking (MPPT) system, with or without water velocity measurement,  could increase the average extracted power.

Keyword

Load Control

Vertical axis turbine

permanent magnet generator

Teknisk fysik med inriktning mot elektricitetslära

Engineering Science with specialization in Science of Electricity

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)