Implementation of Turbine Emulator

Abstract

A Wave Turbine Emulator (WTE) is designed and implemented considering the realistic site data based on Oscillating Water Column (OWC) principle. Wave Turbine Emulator (WTE) is the important equipment for developing the Wave Energy Conversion systems. The Emulator reflects the actual behavior of the wave turbine without reliance on natural wave resources and actual wave turbine. It offers a controllable test environment that allows the evaluation and improvement of control schemes for electric generators which is hard to achieve with an actual wave turbine. The WTE can accurately reproduce the characteristics of real wave turbine. The Emulator can be used for research applications to drive an electrical generator in a similar way as a practical wave turbine. A prototype of turbine emulator is built in the laboratory using a three phase synchronous motor controlled by Rexroth Indra Drive. The system comprises of Simulink model of the Turbine, model of the oscillating water column, Data Acquisition card Instruments, Digital to Analog Converter, 3-phase Permanent magnet Synchronous motor driven by Rexroth Indra Drive Controller.