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DOI 10.1007/s12667-013-0101-5
ORIGINAL PAPER
Received: 22 October 2013 / Accepted: 8 November 2013 / Published online: 13 March 2014
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014
1 Introduction
A. K. Das (B)
Center for study of Science, Technology and Policy, Bangalore, India
e-mail: abhik@cstep.in
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508 A. K. Das
ity. From rated velocity to cut-out velocity (Vo ), power remains constant irrespective
of the change in wind velocity. Beyond the cut-out velocity the turbine is shut down
due to safety considerations. Though one can generate the power curve of a wind-
turbine using experimental values, an approximate explicit analytical representation
of the power curve is useful to simulate the energy output of the turbine. In the region
between the cut-in velocity (VI ) and rated velocity (V R ), the power-curve character-
istics can be expressed using different models like linear, quadratic and cubic [7–11].
In this paper, an explicit functional model of the power curve of a wind turbine
is proposed using two empirical parameters. The explicit analytical equation gives a
satisfactory result for the whole region between cut-in velocity and rated velocity for
a wide variety of commercially available wind turbines.
This paper is organized as follows: Sect. 2 describes available power curve models.
Section 3 introduces the proposed empirical model of the power curve characteristics
of a wind turbine and shows the value of empirical parameters for a wide variety of wind
turbines. Section 4 compares different models of the power curve of a turbine. Section
5 describes the formulation of the capacity-factor of a turbine using the proposed
model and the Weibull distribution. Finally, Sect. 6 presents the conclusion.
V − VI
PV = PR (1)
VR − VI
However, this model overestimates the wind power value when the velocity is near
cut-in velocity VI and underestimates the same when the velocity is near the rated
velocityV R . A better estimation of the power curve can be achieved by using the cubic
model [7] which assumes a constant overall efficiency of the turbine in the region
between the cut-in velocity (VI ) and rated velocity (V R ) as:
(V − VI )3
PV = PR (2)
(V R − VI )3
Another version of the cubic model described in [8] is very similar to Eq. (2) but does
not consider the cut-in velocity (VI ) and can be represented as:
V3
PV = PR (3)
V R3
The quadratic model of the velocity–power curve of a wind turbine can be represented
as described in [9]:
PV = PR (a0 + a1 V + a2 V 2 ) (4)
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An empirical model of power curve of a wind turbine 509
The method to calculate these coefficients is available in [10]. These coefficients are
determined based on the assumption that the output of the turbines follows the cubic
model shown in Eq. (2). A better version of quadratic model is available in [11] and
can be represented as:
V 2 − VI2
PV = PR (5)
V R2 − VI2
V n − VIn
PV = PR (6)
V Rn − VIn
Here n can be defined as the velocity power proportionality constant. In [13,14] a third
order polynomial was used to represent the turbine output and regression was used
to find the coefficients. The explicit analytical models described in [7–14] are useful
to approximate the velocity power response of wind-turbine in some small, specific
region between the cut-in velocity and rated velocity, but they do not represent the
velocity–power characteristics in the whole region between the cut-in velocity and the
rated velocity of commercially available wind turbines.
Let the normalized power be pand the normalized wind velocity be v. Further, p can
be defined as PV /PR and v can be defined as V /V R . This normalization enables a
compact representation of PV and V , when 0 ≤ V ≤ V R for different wind turbines
in [0, 1] × [0, 1] space. The normalized representation shows that the velocity–power
curve fits a wide variety of [PV , V ] values accurately,
α
p =1− 1−v
1−vi eβ(v−vi ) , for vi ≤ v ≤ 1
(7)
=0 for 0 ≤ v < vi
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510 A. K. Das
Fig. 1 Representative curves showing the behavior of p for different values of α and β with vi = 0.2
for all v between vi and 1. From the velocity–power data of a wide variety of turbines
(Table 1), it is easy to see that dp/dv tends to zero when vtends to vi , i.e. the power
curve becomes parallel to the x-axis while vis very close to vi . Hence, by putting
v = vi and dp/dv ≈ 0 in Eq. (8), we get
α ≈ (1 − vi )β (9)
Thus, the two parameter model can also be represented as single parameter model
with some approximation as,
β(1−vi )
1−v
p =1− eβ(v−vi ) , for vi ≤ v ≤ 1 (10)
1 − vi
The proposed two parameter model is used to approximate a wide variety of manu-
facturer turbine data available at [15] and some of the results are presented in Table 1.
According to this, the empirical factors α and β can be determined using simple curve-
fitting method (error minimization) of limited available data points of the turbine. The
power curves using the proposed model are represented in Fig. 3 for different turbines
and show a close match with actual data points.
In Fig. 4, the proposed model is compared with other linear, quadratic and cubic models
described in [7–14] for the turbine GE 1.5 SL. Other available models [7–14] either
overestimate or underestimate the behavior of the velocity–power characteristics of
commercially available wind turbine.
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Table 1 Wind velocity and power data of wind turbines (air density 1.225 kg/m3 )
Wind S.62/ S.64/ S.60/ S.64/ S.66/ GE 900 GE 1.5S GE 1.5SL BWC-S BWC-R V27/ V80/ RE power MM 82 MD 77 T600-52
speed (m/s) 1000 1000 1250 1250 1250 225 1800 48/600
Power (kW)
0.00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1.00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2.00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
3.00 11 16 10 16 17 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 2 5
4.00 26 37 26 37 40 17 36 43 0.25 0.25 3 7 20 66 44 25
An empirical model of power curve of a wind turbine
5.00 83 100 78 100 106 55 104 131 0.80 0.80 15 109 52 153 129 60
6.00 154 181 145 181 193 110 2.5 250 1.65 1.65 33 253 88 279 241 118
7.00 245 287 230 287 306 184 344 416 3.65 2.55 55 443 152 462 396 154
8.00 372 451 350 451 481 283 528 640 4.85 3.65 82 682 239 702 594 269
9.00 565 645 530 645 687 409 774 924 6.15 4.85 115 968 318 981 846 411
10.00 758 861 704 861 917 577 1,079 1,181 7.5 6.15 150 1,286 418 1,251 1,100 538
11.00 893 1,000 860 1,085 1,156 739 1,342 1,359 9.00 7.50 180 1,582 490 1,545 1,318 600
12.00 1,000 1,000 980 1,250 1,250 851 1,460 1,436 9.5 8.00 208 1,748 556 1,817 1,467 600
13.00 1,000 1,000 1,120 1,250 1,250 892 1,494 1,481 10.0 8.00 218 1,793 590 2,000 1,500 600
14.00 1,000 1,000 1,250 1,250 1,250 899 1,500 1,494 8.0 8.00 224 1,799 605 2,000 1,500 600
15.00 1,000 1,000 1,250 1,250 1,250 900 1,500 1,500 6.0 7.00 225 1,800 610 2,000 1,500 600
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511
512
123
Table 1 continued
Wind S.62/ S.64/ S.60/ S.64/ S.66/ GE 900 GE 1.5S GE 1.5SL BWC-S BWC-R V27/ V80/ RE power MM 82 MD 77 T600-52
speed (m/s) 1000 1000 1250 1250 1250 225 1800 48/600
One of the major applications of the proposed power curve model is to calculate the
capacity factor of a wind turbine. The capacity factor (C F ) of a wind turbine can be
defined as the ratio of the energy actually produced by the turbine to the energy that
could be produced by it, if the turbine had been always operating at its rated power.
The capacity factor depends on the nature of wind regime as well as on the turbine
characteristics.
Being a stochastic phenomenon, the speed and direction of wind vary widely by
time. A wide range of statistical distribution reflecting the wind velocity pattern exists.
The Weibull distribution, which can be viewed as a special case of Pierson class
III distribution, is well accepted and commonly used in energy analysis [13]. The
probability function of the Weibull distribution (which represents the wind variation
with an acceptable level of approximation) can be represented as:
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514 A. K. Das
Table 2 Root-mean-square error of different models of normalized velocity power curves for a wide-variety
of commercially available turbines
Linear (1) Cubic (2) Cubic (3) Quadratic (4) Quadratic (5) n-degree (6) Proposed
model (7)
k−1 k
k V − Vc
f (V ) = e (11)
c c
where k is the Weibull shape factor, c is the scale factor and V is the velocity under
consideration. The cumulative distribution function F(V ) of the Weibull distribution
can be represented as:
k
− Vc
F(V ) = f (V )d V = 1 − e (12)
The probability density function f (V ) represents the fraction of time (or probability)
during which the wind blows with a specific velocity and F(V ) represents the fraction
of time (or probability) that the wind velocity is equal or lower than V . Hence, the
energy contributed by V , per unit time per unit rotor area can be calculated as PV ∗ f (V ),
where PV represents the power available at the velocity V . Considering all possible
wind-velocities, the total energy density E D can be expressed as,
Vo
ED = PV f (V )d V (13)
VI
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An empirical model of power curve of a wind turbine 515
E D = E IR + E RO (14)
VR
E IR = PV f (V )d V (15)
VI
VO
E RO = PR f (V )d V (16)
VR
VR
E IR = PR f (V )d V − I (17)
VI
wherein,
1 α
1−v
I = PR eβ(v−vi ) f (vV R )dv (18)
1 − vi
vi
Using Eqs. (14), (16) and (17), the energy density E D can be represented as,
VO
E D = PR f (V )d V − I (19)
VI
VI k VO k
E D = PR exp − − exp − −I (20)
c c
1 v k−1
PR V Rk−1 k v
I = (1 − v)α exp β(v − vi ) − V Rk ( )k dv (21)
(1 − vi )α c c c
vi
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516 A. K. Das
ED VI k VO k
CF = = exp − − exp − −J (22)
PR c c
1 k−1
k
V Rk−1 k α v k v
J= (1 − v) exp β(v − vi ) − V R dv (23)
(1 − vi )α c c c
vi
As depicted in the calculations above, the integral part of theJ can be calculated numer-
ically for different values of β, k and c. For similar cut-in velocity VI , rated velocity
V R and cut-out velocity Vo , the different wind turbine power curve characteristics can
be represented using their respective α and β parameters. Using the approximated
relation, a ≈ (1 − vi )β the power curve characteristics of different turbines can be
compared using the single parameter value β (or α). The numerical computation of
the integral part of J in Eq. (23) depends on (a) the turbine empirical factor β, (b) the
normalized cut-in velocity VI , (c) the Weibull shape factor k and (d) the Weibull scale
factor c. It is interesting to see that the capacity factor of the turbine depends on the
parameter β for different set of (k, c, vi ) values.
Fig. 5 The capacity factor of wind turbine for different parameter value β a for fixed scale factor c and
different shape factor k, b for fixed shape factor k and different scale factor c and c for different normalized
cut-in velocity vi
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An empirical model of power curve of a wind turbine 517
For the graphs in Fig. 5a and b, we consider that the turbines have similar cut-in
velocity VI = 2 m/s, rated velocity V R = 12 m/s and cut-out velocity Vo = 20 m/s, but
differ in their respective β. Table 1 shows that the choice of the values in cut-in velocity,
rated velocity and cut-out velocity is based on industry standards and the availability
of existing wind turbines. As shown in Fig. 4, the capacity factor C F increases with
increasing β. Figure 5a shows the capacity factor of turbine where the Weibull scale
factor c is fixed and the shape factor k is varying. Similarly, in Fig. 5b it is shown how
the capacity factor varies when the scale factor c changes when k is fixed. In both cases,
it is easy to note that the capacity factor increases when the turbine parameter value
β increases. In Fig. 5c, the capacity factor vs. β curves are for different normalized
cut-in velocity vi . Since vi exists in the lower limit of the integral part of J in Eq. (23),
it is expected that the capacity factor will be higher for lower vi . The results show that
the higher the β, the better the capacity factor of the wind turbine.
6 Conclusion
This paper considers an empirical, two-parameter model to represent the power curve
data of wind turbine. The empirical factors α and β can be generated using the limited
data points of the power curve. The functional form obtained when using these two
parameters shows a satisfactory match with a wide variety of actual power curve data of
different turbines. The proposed model generalizes the power curve of different wind
turbines and can be used to compare their power curve characteristics. The proposed
model is compared with other existing models for different commercially available
wind turbines and shows a better approximation of the power curve characteristics.
The functional representation of the proposed model can be used for calculating the
capacity factor of wind turbine if the nature of the wind regime is known. The paper
also considers the Weibull density function to characterize the wind distribution and
the proposed model is used to calculate the capacity factor of the turbine given such
a distribution. The numerical analysis of the energy density and capacity factor is
computationally feasible due to the explicit representation in the model. It is interesting
to see that the higher the empirical parameter values, better the capacity factor of the
wind turbine.
Acknowledgments The author wishes to thank the reviewers of this article for their feedback, Dr.
Anshu Bharadwaj, Executive Director, Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP),
Bangalore, India for his continuous support; Dr. Annapoorna Ravichander and Mr. Bishal Mazumdar,
CSTEP, Bangalore, India for their help in creating this manuscript.
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