Dynamic performance simulation and control of gas turbines used for hybrid gas/wind energy applications

The exponential growth of renewable electricity generation has transformed significantly the operating environment of gas turbines. Nowadays, gas turbines operate under transient conditions to support their renewable partners. Gas turbine dynamic performance simulation provides the means for assessing the engine behavior and designing engine controllers that will enable them to fulfill their new operating role. This paper presents a novel gas turbine performance system for representing the nonlinear behavior of a two-shaft gas turbine engine. The developed gas turbine engine model in MATLAB/Simulink environment is capable of simulating both steady state and transient operating conditions, and to facilitate the design of controllers for stable engine operation. Validation of the developed engine model with a gas turbine simulation package confirmed the excellent agreement among all the simulated measurements at transient conditions. The simulated behavior of a hybrid gas/wind power plant enabled the development of an optimized controller for empowering the gas turbine to support the intermittent wind turbines. The time responses of the main parameters of the hybrid gas/wind power plant demonstrated the significant amount of transient conditions that a gas turbine experiences for fulfilling the energy gap imposed by the wind turbines. Finally, the performance comparison of the hybrid power plant to a twin gas turbine power plant highlighted the effective reduction in NO_x emissions.