Individual Pitch Control

The current development trend is towards larger, higher power, wind turbines, in order to reduce the ultimate generating cost per kWh. Increasing wind turbine size implies larger rotor diameters and rotor sweep areas. This results in a less uniform wind field over the swept area which imparts uneven loads on the blades, drive shaft and turbine structure. These uneven loads increase component wear, reduce efficiency and increase the amount of maintenance downtime required.

This can be overcome by designing the pitch control system to incorporate Independent Pitch Control (IPC), a system which dynamically adjusts the pitch of each blade, many times per rotation, to optimize the loading on the rotor and to eliminate these damaging bending moments in the blades, drivetrain and tower.

Insensys' IPC system supplies accurate, real-time, load information from each blade to the turbine's blade pitch control system, so that the resultant loading on Blades, Drive Train  and Tower can be reduced through intelligent management of the blade pitch in response to real time loads. Management of the loads from the blades reduces wear on components, reduces downtime and maintenance costs and increases efficiency through increased turbine operation, reduced friction and increased wind utilization.  Numerous studies have shown load reductions of 10-30% on key turbine components, both in fatigue and extreme loads, with a concomitant increase in life or reduction in component cost.

Implementation of IPC on existing platforms is enabling some turbine manufacturers to upgrade current platforms by fitting larger blades to existing machines and managing out the increased loads resulting in very significant savings in new turbine development costs.

For more information about the Independent Pitch Control solutions on offer from Insensys visit our download page or feel free to contact us with your queries.