Emergency pitch drive power supply
AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorThomas Edenfeld
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An emergency pitch drive power supply is provided, the emergency pitch drive power supply comprising an auxiliary generator for producing electric power, wherein the auxiliary generator is a permanently excited multi-pole generator adapted to generate sufficient power for a pitch drive of a wind turbine when driven with wind rotor speed, and wherein the auxiliary generator is connected to at least one pitch drive motor of the wind turbine.
Claims20
An emergency pitch drive power supply system for a wind turbine comprising an auxiliary generator directly driven by a shaft coupled to a wind rotor of the wind turbine;
- wherein the auxiliary generator is a permanently excited multi-pole generator comprising permanent magnets magnetically coupled to windings coupled to the shaft and adapted to generate power for a pitch drive of the wind turbine while the wind rotor is rotating;
- and
- wherein the auxiliary generator is connected to at least one pitch drive motor of the wind turbine.
A wind turbine comprising:
- a wind rotor having at least one rotor blade wherein the pitch of the rotor blade is adjustable by a pitch drive, the wind rotor being connected to a low-speed rotor shaft;
- a main generator drivable via the rotor shaft;
- and
- a permanently excited multi-pole auxiliary generator connected to the pitch drive and the rotor shaft, the auxiliary generator directly driven by the rotor shaft.
A method for supplying electric power to at least one pitch drive of a wind turbine in a case of emergency, comprising the steps of:
- providing a directly driven permanently excited multi-pole auxiliary generator in a wind turbine;
- driving the auxiliary generator with a low speed in the range from 12 to 50 rpm to produce electric power;
- and
- in case of emergency, supplying the electric power to the at least one pitch drive to turn the at least one rotor blade out of the wind.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.