IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 21, NO.

3, JUNE 2011 1151

Study of 10 MW-Class Wind Turbine Synchronous

Generators With HTS Field Windings
Satoshi Fukui, Jun Ogawa, Takao Sato, Osami Tsukamoto, Naoji Kashima, and Shigeo Nagaya

Abstract—We study the electro-magnetic design of 10 MW-class TABLE I

wind turbine generator with high temperature superconducting BASIC DESIGN CONDITION OF 10 MW WIND TURBINE GENERATOR
field winding by using the FEM analysis. The design examples are
presented and the generator characteristics are investigated. The
10 MW-class HTS wind turbine generator is considered to be fea-
sible from the stand point of the electro-magnetic design. In this
study, 8-pole and 12-pole generators are investigated. From the re-
sults, it is considered that the 8-pole design is preferable compared
with the 12-pole design. The analysis also reveals the small syn-
chronous reactance of the HTS wind turbine generator. Therefore,
proper protection is necessary for the large short circuit current.
Index Terms—HTS field winding, synchronous generator, wind
turbine generator.
wind turbine generators. In this paper, the electromagnetic
design of 10 MW-class wind turbine synchronous generator
I. INTRODUCTION
with HTS field windings is studied. The design examples of the
EVELOPMENT and introduction of wind power gener- HTS wind turbine generator are presented and the generator
D ators have recently advanced in the R & D of renewable
energies [1]–[3]. Scaling-up of wind turbines is one of recent R
characteristics are discussed.

& D trends because of the scale merits. In the present situation,
it is considered that a 5 MW wind turbine is the power limit of
the conventional generator technology. However, a further in-
crease of the out-put power of the wind turbine generators, more
than 5 MW, is required. Therefore, a break-thought technology
to develop light weight and compact wind turbine generators is
surely expected [4]–[6].
With recent progress of fabrication technologies of long
length and high critical current 2G HTS tapes (ex. YBCO
tape), it is promising to develop high magnetic field HTS coils
for power apparatuses. By applying HTS to the wind turbine
generators, it is expected to provide the light weight and com-
pact design, since the magnetic field can be higher compared
with the conventional generator, so that the iron core can be
considerably reduced. Therefore, it is considered that the appli-
cation of the HTS technology to the wind turbine generator is
one of the key issues to break the technical power limit of the
conventional wind turbine generator. In this study, we focus to
apply high temperature superconductivity for the 10 MW-class
Manuscript received August 03, 2010; accepted October 21, 2010. Date of
publication November 18, 2010; date of current version May 27, 2011. This
work supported in part by Chubu Electric Power Co. Inc.
S. Fukui, J. Ogawa, and T. Sato are with Graduate School of Science and
Technology, Niigata University, Niigata, 950-2181, Japan (e-mail: fukui@eng.
niigata-u.ac.jp).
O. Tsukamoto is with Yokohama National University, Kanagawa, 240-8501,
Japan (e-mail: osami-t@ynu.ac.jp).
N. Kashima and S. Nagaya are with Chubu Electric Power Co. Inc., Aichi,
459-8522, Japan (e-mail: Kashima.Naoji@chuden.co.jp).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TASC.2010.2090115
1051-8223/$26.00 © 2010 IEEE
II. ELECTRO-MAGNETIC DESIGN OF 10 MW HTS WIND
TURBINE GENERATOR
A. Design Condition
The electro-magnetic design of 10 MW wind turbine gener-
ator with HTS field windings is performed by using FEM anal-
ysis. In this study, the 3-phase generator with the rated voltage
of 3.3 kV (phase-to-phase) is considered. The number of the
revolution is 10 rpm [5]. In Table I, the basic design condition
is summarized.
B. High Temperature Superconducting Field Winding
For the HTS field winding, the high magnetic field design is
necessary to effectively use the advantage of HTS. In this de-
sign, we consider that the strength of the main magnetic field
produced by the HTS field windings at the position of the ar-
mature winding should be 2.5–3 T which exceeds the saturation
value of the magnetic field in the conventional magnetic core
material. To secure the higher magnetic field, the armature wind-
ings should be supported in the non-magnetic material and the
back yoke made of the magnetic material is used for the purpose
of magnetic shield. In this analysis, it is considered that the HTS
field winding is operated at 20 K and the rated current density
is set at . Fig. 1 shows the schematic il-
lustrations of the cross section and the FEM models of the wind
turbine generators with the HTS field windings which are anal-
ysed in this study. The sizes of the HTS field coil are also shown
in Fig. 1. As shown in Fig. 1, the model-1 is for the case of 8-pole
generator and the model-2 is for the case of 12-pole generator
respectively. The FEM analysis is firstly performed to obtain the
magnetic field distribution around the armature winding. Fig. 2
1152 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 21, NO. 3, JUNE 2011

Fig. 2. Distribution of radial components of magnetic field around armature

winding. (a) Model-1 (8-pole) and (b) model-2 (12-pole).

voltage (phase-to-ground) in the armature winding, , is ap-

Fig. 1. Schematic illustrations of cross section of 10 MW HTS wind turbine proximately expressed by
generators and their FEM models. (a) Model-1 (8-pole) and (b) model-2 (12-
pole). (1)

where is the rated revolution (rpm), is the mean radius

shows the distributions of the radial magnetic field on the az- of the armature winding, is the length along the generator
imuthal line of , 1446 mm and 1456 mm. It is con- axis which is effective for the power conversion, is the pole
firmed that the magnetic field around the armature winding can number. should be an even number becasuse of the 2-layer
be around 2.5–3 T. From the data shown in Fig. 2, the magnetic winding. Considering the data shown in Fig. 2, is
field in the model-2 is smaller than that in the model-1. When the used. The cross section of the slot and Cu conductor for the ar-
pole number becomes large with same diameter, the distance be- mature winding should also be determined by considering the
tween the neighboring field coils decreases. The magnetic flux geometrical constraints as follows.
produced by the field coils passes nearby the field coils and the
magnetic field around the armature windings decreases. It is (2)
also found that the necessary amount of the HTS wire for the (3)
model-1 is much smaller than that for the model-2. Therefore,
(4)
it is considered that the 8-pole design (model-1) is preferable
compared with the 12-pole design (model-2). As also shown (5)
in Fig. 2(a), the magnetic field at is saturated.
This is the effect of the magnetic saturation of the back yoke. In where and are the cross section and the current density
Table II, the specifications of the HTS field winding are sum- of the Cu area in the armature conductor respectively, is the
marized. packing factor of the Cu in the slot, and are the slot
height and the slot width respectively, and are the height
C. Armature Winding and the width of the Cu part in the armature conductor respec-
tively. Based on the above consideration, the specifications of
In this design, we consider that the armature winding is the the armature windings are determined as shown in Table II.
2-layer winding with the distributed structure. The slot num-
bers per phase and per pole are for the model-1 and III. FEM ANALYSIS OF GENERATOR MODELS
for the model-2 respectively. For the FEM analysis, the
number of the Cu armature conductor in each slot, , must be A. Basic Characteristics
estimated. Assuming that spatial distribution of the magnetic The basic generator characteristics of the model-1 and the
field is sinusoidal with the amplitude of , the induced phase model-2 are investigated based on the results of the FEM
FUKUI et al.: 10 MW-CLASS WIND TURBINE SYNCHRONOUS GENERATORS WITH HTS FIELD WINDINGS
TABLE II
DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS OF 10 MW WIND TURBINE GENERATOR
analysis. Figs. 3(a) and 3(c) show the waveforms of the phase
voltage at the rated field current and the rated revolution. The
root mean square values of the phase voltage obtained by the
FFT of the voltage waveforms are plotted against the frequency
in Figs. 3(b) and 3(d). From the data shown in Fig. 3, it is
confirmed that the phase voltage can be secured for the output
power of 10 MW. It is also shown in Fig. 3 that there are no
significant high harmonic components in the phase voltage.
The no-load saturation curves and the short-circuit curves are
obtained from the FEM analysis and the data are shown in
Fig. 4. In Fig. 4, the horizontal axis represents the ratio of the
current density of the field winding to that of the rated value,
. As shown in Fig. 4, the short-circuit curves are very
sharp against the normalized field current, since the magnetic
induction of the armature winding is much smaller than that
of the HTS field winding. Therefore, we consider that the
calculation of the synchronous reactance from the data in Fig. 4
is difficult. The synchronous reactance should be determined
from the data of the resistance-load analysis shown in the nest
section.
B. Resistance-Load Analysis
The resistance-load analysis is performed combining the
FEM analysis and the circuit analysis. In this analysis, the
1153
Fig. 3. Phase voltage waveforms and root mean square values of phase voltage
in no-load analysis. (a) and (b) model-1, (c) and (d) model-2.
balanced 3-phase resistive load is connected to the generator
model. In this analysis, the values of the resistance are 1.03
for the model-1 and 0.99 for the model-2 respectively,
which are determined for the output power of 10 MW. Fig. 5
shows the waveforms of the phase voltage and the line current
obtained by the resistance-load analysis. From the voltage
and current waveforms shown in Fig. 5, it is confirmed that
output power is 10.1 MW for the model-1 and 9.83 MW for
the model-2 respectively. The synchronous reactance is also
obtained from the consideration of the equivalent circuit of
synchronous generator and using the data shown in Fig. 5. The
values of the synchronous reactance are 0.203 (0.198 pu) for
the model-1 and 0.217 (0.215 pu) for the model-2. This small
value of the synchronous reactance is the unique feature of the
1154
Fig. 4. No-load saturation curves and short-circuit curves. (a) Model-1 and (b)
model-2.
superconducting machine, since the magnetic induction of the
armature winding is much smaller than that of the HTS field
winding. A similar result is reported in [6]. Generally, the small
synchronous reactance may cause the large short circuit current
in the case of accidents. It is considered that proper protection
methods should be combined in the case of actual installation.
IV. SUMMARY
The electro-magnetic design of the 10 MW-class wind tur-
bine generator with the HTS field winding was studied in this
paper. Two possible design examples were presented and the
generator characteristics were investigated by using the FEM
analysis. It is considered that the 10 MW-class HTS wind tur-
bine generator is feasible from the stand point of the electro-
magnetic design. It was found from the FEM analysis that the
magnetic field in the 12-pole design is smaller than that in the
8-pole design. The necessary length of the HTS wire for the
8-pole design was significantly smaller than that for the 12-pole
design. The total amount of the Cu in armature winding of the
8-pole design was also smaller than that of the 12-pole design.
Therefore, it is concluded that the 8-pole design is preferable
compared with the 12-pole design. It was notable that signifi-
cant high harmonic components in the voltage and current were
not observed. This is effective from the view point of the AC
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 21, NO. 3, JUNE 2011
Fig. 5. Waveforms of phase voltage and line current in case of resistance-load
analysis. (a) Model-1 and (b) model-2.
loss reduction. It was also pointed out that the synchronous re-
sistance was very small. If the synchronous reactance of the gen-
erator is small, the short circuit current in the case of the accident
becomes large. Therefore, proper protections should be studied
together with the development of the HTS wind generator.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Prof. H. Ohsaki of the Univer-
sity of Tokyo for the useful discussions and Mr. M. Hasegawa
of Niigata University for the assistance of FEM analysis.
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