Control of a 15MW off-shore wind turbine for black-start operation

Grid forming wind turbines are crucial for achieving a 100% renewable based grid. The mechanical control of the wind turbines is usually designed for maximum power tracking operation. This paper includes the development of a wind turbine pitch controller considering the wider operational range of a grid forming wind turbine. The proposed controller tracks the optimal generation characteristic of the wind turbine when grid connected and is designed to cater for the different power levels when the wind turbine is operated in islanded mode (or grid-connected at partial power). The proposed controller does not require wind speed estimation for its operation and shows better performance than standard pitch controllers during grid-forming operation, particularly, limiting wind turbine speed excursion during block de-loading. Moreover, the proposed controller does not increase the mechanical loads of the key wind turbine elements. The performance of the proposed control is validated in a black start procedure with a full wind farm realistic real-time simulator, including detailed electrical and aeroelastic models of the wind turbine generator, wind farm and connecting HVDC link. Time and frequency domain validation using the real-time model has shown the performance of the proposed controller during black start operation.