Performance Evaluation of an Induction Machine with Auxiliary Winding for Wind Turbine Power

The purpose of this paper is to reinforce with theoretical and experimental evaluation the effectiveness of employing an induction generator to enhance the performance of a small wind energy converter (SWEC). With this generator, the SWEC works more efficiently and therefore can produce more energy in a unit turbine area. To verify the SWEC performance, a model has been proposed, simulated, built, and experimentally tested over a range of operating conditions. The results demonstrate a significant increase in output power with an induction generator that employs an auxiliary winding, which is only magnetically coupled to the stator main winding. It is also shown that the operating performance of the induction machine with the novel proposed technique is significantly enhanced in terms of suppressed signal distortion and harmonics, severity of resistive losses and overheating, power factor, and preventing high inrush current at starting.