JPH0762471B2 - Wind turbine tower mast top orientation control - Google Patents

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an orientation control device for a mast top of a wind turbine tower having multi-blade blades that rotate by using wind energy.

Conventional Technology and Problems There have been various proposals for attempts to utilize natural energy from the viewpoint of economical efficiency. In addition to photovoltaic power generation devices, solar thermal power generation devices, geothermal power generation, tidal current power generation, seawater temperature difference power generation, wave power generation, etc., wind power generation has also attracted attention as a power generation method using a clean energy source.

Although it has been practiced for a long time to exchange wind energy into rotational energy by a windmill and use it for water fetching, mortar rotation, punching, etc., these days, remote islands and inconvenience of transportation are inconvenient. It is being developed for use as a small energy source in various places or places where maintenance is relatively infrequent.

As a method for storing wind energy, there are generally known a heat storage method and an electric storage method.
The former converts the rotational energy of the wind turbine into the reciprocating motion of the piston, converts this energy into heat by adiabatically compressing / expanding the air by this force, and storing this as hot water, or the heat is a hydrogen storage alloy. The method of storing by is also tried.

When the rotational energy of a wind turbine is transmitted to a generator and is made into electric energy by this, it is the most common method to charge this to a storage battery. In addition to this, operate the pump with a windmill to pump water to the upper tank,
It is also possible to convert wind energy into potential energy and store it.

Wind turbines used for wind power generation are roughly classified into those whose rotation axis is vertical to the wind direction and those whose wind axis is directly opposite to the wind direction, that is, horizontal.

As a vertical wind turbine, a Darius type wind turbine is well known. This wind turbine has three to four rotor blades, and has the advantage that it rotates with respect to wind from any direction, that is, the wind direction control of the wind turbine is unnecessary, but it has the drawback that it is difficult to self-start. ing. This relates to the initial starting torque of the wind turbine, and means that the minimum wind speed required to start the rotation from the stopped state (hereinafter referred to as cut-in wind speed) is high.

As a horizontal wind turbine, a propeller type is generally used. This method has the lowest construction cost per unit of electricity,
It has a high rotational conversion rate with respect to the wind speed, and is therefore the method that has been used the most so far, but it has the disadvantage that it is not powerful enough for the number of revolutions.

Although it is the same horizontal wind turbine, the multi-blade wind turbine in which the number of blades is increased or the blade area is increased is a well-known one in which the above-mentioned defects of the propeller wind turbine are improved. Also at this time,
As for the shape of the blade, a method with high energy conversion efficiency has been tried.

This method has the advantage that it rotates with even a small amount of wind, that is, it has the advantage of good energy conversion efficiency, but it has a common drawback that the rotation speed conversion rate with respect to the wind speed is low.

The wind turbine tower, which has a horizontal wind turbine with large rotating blades that can be seen both in Japan and overseas, is installed in a fixed-shaped building with a fixed orientation in which the wind turbine tower is oriented with respect to the most probable wind direction throughout the year. It is mostly done.

Among the wind power generation towers having rotating blades, the upper part of the wind power generation tower that faces the wind is called the mast top, and the mast top is faced to the wind direction that changes from time to time. Although it is obvious that controlling in the right direction (hereinafter abbreviated as YAW control) is effective in maximizing the use of wind energy, this is rarely done mainly for economic reasons. It was

In principle, the wind direction changes moment by moment, but the most probable wind direction is statistically determined for seasonal, weather, or topographic reasons, and this is the mast top of the fixed-type wind turbine tower. It has been used as a standard for orientation. For that reason, there were few technologies accumulated and few were put to practical use in attempts to automate wind direction tracking. Some of the mast tops have some movable parts, but most of them are operated manually, and their adjustment work is extremely complicated, resulting in low work efficiency.

The object of the present invention is to mast the wind direction that changes from moment to moment with easy means.
An object of the present invention is to provide a azimuth control device for a wind power generation tower mast top that makes more effective use of wind energy by directly facing the top.

According to the present invention, in order to achieve the above object, a mast top composed of a multi-blade horizontal wind turbine having rotating blades and a power generation section interlocking with the multi-blade wind turbine is formed in a 360-degree omnidirectional movable manner. The electric signal from the wind direction / anemometer to be placed is compared with the electric signal obtained from the azimuth control section regarding the reference value based on the azimuth of the mast top at that time, and then the mast top is turned. It has a self-correction mechanism that converts it into an azimuth control signal and turns the mast top based on this control signal, and makes the mast top always face the wind direction at a constant angle at regular intervals. It is characterized by that.

Embodiments The present invention will be described with reference to the drawings illustrating the embodiments. FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram of the wind power generation system of the present invention. Part A is a mast top that constitutes a wind turbine tower, a generator that rotates a wind turbine that rotates by wind power, a rectifier that rectifies the electrical energy obtained by this, and a wind turbine that has a storage battery that stores the DC power obtained by this. It is a fixed part of the tower.

This electric energy is appropriately supplied from an inverter to a load, for example, an external water pump or an illuminating lamp on the street, and further, to drive the wind turbine with respect to winds below the cut-in wind speed.

Further, in preparation for a day with little wind, external commercial power is supplied to the storage battery via the charger to charge the storage battery for self-discharging or insufficient charging.

In addition, if the wind speed exceeds the limit and is too high, it is equipped with a mechanism to detect over-rotation of the wind turbine and automatically stop it.On the contrary, if it is too low, a drive motor connected to the main spindle of the wind turbine drives the clutch through a clutch. When the wind speed exceeds the cut-in wind speed, the clutch is disengaged so that the wind turbine can easily rotate by itself.

On the other hand, in addition to fixing the rotating shaft of the wind turbine by braking the wind turbine by driving the brake motor when repairing the wind turbine tower and related devices and other necessary
Although not shown, in order to further enhance the safety, a locking lock pin is inserted into the drum portion of the main spindle rotary brake to stop the rotation safely. The electric signals for operating these are all transmitted from the sequencer control section E.

The section B is a mechanical drive section for rotating the mast top.
This device is located at the bottom of the mast top
Based on the electric signal transmitted from the control section E, the opposing YAW motors are driven and the brake is operated to fix the entire mast top.

The section C is an azimuth control section which sends out an electric signal related to the reference value of the mast / top direction set at that time. This electric signal and the electric signal from the wind direction / anemometer that has come in at that time are sequencer to be described later. The mast top determines the direction to turn next and the direction to turn by comparing with the control unit.

Section D is an anemometer / anemometer installed separately from the wind turbine tower, and is provided with a converter for obtaining an electric signal based on the anemometer / anemometer. The electric signal here is input to the data processing section of the sequencer / controller section E and serves as a reference for determining the operation of the entire apparatus of the present invention.

The E section is a sequencer control section formed by a process control circuit that issues a signal command relating to input / output necessary for YAW control based on the conversion signal of the wind direction / anemometer and a control circuit that electrically controls the process control circuit. The process control circuit and the control circuit are connected to the respective equipments by the power line shown by the solid line and the signal line shown by the dotted line, and the electric signal from there is sent from the section A to the section C as described above. Is the basis for performing a unified operation.

Note that the wind direction and wind speed are constantly measured in the D section, but since they change from moment to moment, the mast must remain unchanged.
It is not used to control the heading of the top. That is, usually, the wind direction within a fixed time preset by the converter, the measured values related to the wind speed are integrated, and the most probable wind direction within that time is determined from the average value and the deviation value of the wind value. Sent out as an electrical signal related to azimuth,
Based on this, the mast top decides the optimal direction to take next at regular intervals.

Then, the direction in which the mast top should turn is determined, and the movement to the desired direction is achieved in the shortest time.

The slip ring in Fig. 1 is located between the turning mast top and the fixed base to facilitate turning, but since the mast top makes a 360-degree omnidirectional turn, all electrical signals are transmitted in this part. The figure shows the state of sliding joining. Therefore, the left side of the slip ring must be
The top and right sides correspond to the fixed parts of the wind turbine tower.

Fig. 2 is a control block diagram for YAW control of the mast top. 1 is a wind direction / anemometer, 2 is a converter that electrically changes an analog signal, 3 is the wind direction and the value is the mast at that time.・ Azimuth reference comparison control unit that compares with the reference azimuth of the top, 4 is the judgment of the turning direction for turning the YAW based on the azimuth output signal of the wind direction, and 5 is a YAW control mechanism, and 5 is the start and stop of turning of the mast top. It is a circuit for a command signal for performing.

FIG. 3 is an example of a wind turbine tower according to the present invention. 6 is a machine room for accommodating a generator, etc., and the mast top is configured including this part and the blades of the wind turbine. 7 is an electric roll mechanism for turning the mast top, and 8 is a rail on which the electric roll mechanism turns. 9 is an observation room, 10 is a sequencer / control unit E and a sequencer for storing a rectifier, a charger, and a storage battery, a control unit E room, 11 is an anemometer / anemometer stand, and 12 is a column.

Figure 4 shows the YAW developed to rotate the machine room 360 degrees.
It is a mechanism diagram of a control unit. Reference numeral 13 is a main roller, 8 is a fixed rail, 14 is a turning cyclo-reduction electric motor, 15 is a gear directly connected to the reduction electric motor, 16 is a fixed pin for turning, 17 is a mast top support stand, 18 Is a steel frame fixing base that supports the fixed rail 8.

Explaining the movement mechanism, the turning cyclodeceleration motor 14 is controlled by a control signal from the sequencer control unit E.
When is activated, the gear 15 is subjected to decelerated rotation, and the mast top turns along the guideline of the fixing pin 16.

FIG. 5 is a plan view of the YAW control mechanism as viewed from above in FIG. Explaining the movement mechanism, the fixed rail 8
The turning gear 15 that is directly connected to the cycloidal reduction motor 14 while contacting the turning fixing pin 16 installed on the inner circumference of the wheel rotates inside the fixed rail. At this time, the main roller 13 attached to the mast / top support frame 17 rotates on the upper surface of the fixed rail 8 for holding the main track, and the side roller
Numeral 19 rotates the inner peripheral edge of the fixed rail 8 to hold the position of the side surface, and the floating prevention roller 20 rotates the back surface of the fixed rail 8 to hold the upper and lower positions, if the mast top can be easily turned. It works as if tightening.

In a power generator that supplies power to a load by wind power generation and stores excess power in a storage battery, in order to improve the utilization efficiency of the wind energy, it is necessary to use wind in all directions. Although it is necessary to face the wind direction, the present invention makes it possible.

Effects of the Invention As described above, in the present invention, in a multi-blade wind power generation tower having rotating blades, even if a small amount of wind power is converted into electrical energy by making its mast top face the optimum wind direction detected at regular time intervals. It has the advantage of being convertible and its industrial value is great.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a control configuration diagram for YAW controlling a mast top, FIG. 3 is an example of a wind turbine tower according to the present invention, and FIG. 4 is YAW. FIG. 5 is a control configuration diagram and FIG. 5 is an upper explanatory diagram of the YAW control configuration diagram. 1 ... Wind direction / speed type, 6 ... Machine room, 9 ... Observatory, 13
...... Main roller, 15 …… Gear, 19 …… Side roller, 24 …… Cyclo reduction motor storage case

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A mast top having a wind turbine equipped with multi-blade blades, the mast top being fixed to a mast top strut mount, the mast top strut mount being provided under the mast top. A wind turbine tower equipped with a mechanical drive unit for turning the vehicle and an azimuth control unit for sending out an electric signal related to a reference value of the azimuth of the mast top, and the wind turbine tower is provided separately.
A wind power generation tower mast top direction control device comprising an wind direction / anemometer for sending an electric signal relating to the wind direction at regular intervals, wherein the mechanical drive unit is for turning provided on a mast top support stand. A cyclodeceleration motor, a gear directly connected to the turning cyclodeceleration motor, and a fixed rail that abuts the gear to turn the mast / top strut frame, and an electric signal from the azimuth controller. A process control circuit for comparing an electric signal from the wind direction / anemometer at regular time intervals and then converting it into a control signal for a direction in which the mast / top is turned, and power based on the control signal from the process control circuit. A sequencer control unit having a control circuit for transmitting
The power from the control circuit of the sequencer control unit is sent to the turning cyclodeceleration motor and the azimuth control unit to correct the direction of the mast top so that the mast top always faces the wind direction at regular intervals. Wind turbine tower mast top orientation control device.