Power Electronics and Wind Power

Renewable energy facilities will constitute a major contribution to electrical power in the future. The wind turbine will, together with biomass, form the major renewables parts up to year 2030 including erection of offshore wind farms. The wind is a non-storable energy source, whose electric energy needs priming into interchangeable energy to be competitive for large-scale power generation. An essential task is then to make wind power as commercially valuable and fungible as electric power produced by traditional, dispatched plants such as fossil fuel power plants, hydroelectric plants, nuclear plants and the like. Power electronics is a fundamental candidate when priming wind power. Another candidate is automation starting in the towers and ending in load management. Power electronics and automation shall be cost-effective and reliable. Power electronic hardware shall be common but in moderation because losses and investments must be paid back: by better trading on the power exchange, by availability, by reduced mechanical and/or civil engineering as well as by efficiency and reliability. An overview of wind power from different perspectives: collection & transmission (C&T), energy storage, R&D e.g. in EU and US, existing technology, wind’s future(s) business, etc. is comprised. EPE should be challenged to exploit wind power opportunities.