This week: Woodward: Slim - Light - Powerful

With the continuous increase of wind turbines installations for onshore and offshore wind turbines in various countries, the centerpiece of the wind turbine - the frequency converter - is challenged with increasing requirements. WOODWARD offers a new product line in their converter family CONCYCLE with CW 1000LD (DFIG-Converter) and CONCYCLE CW 2000LF (Full Size Converter). The CONCYCLE converters are available in a power range from 1MW up to 10MW. Highest reliability and best efficiency are under primary focus. The modular design of the converter allows for redundant configurations and keep the wind turbines running. The new developed power stacks from WOODWARD includes intelligent supervision and monitoring functions.

With different worldwide installations, the wind turbines climate conditions are changing. Extremely high and cold temperatures, high humidity, dusty and salty air as well, are environmental requirements for future wind turbine locations. The completely sealed, water cooled CONCYCLE converter system is able to endure these ambient conditions. Besides that the service intervals can be extended with this design. A frequent exchange of filters as necessary in air cooled converters becomes obsolete. Watercooling allows for a very compact design. Only very small foot print inside the tower or the nacelle of a wind turbine is required. Perfect selected components and their intelligent arrangement inside the cabinets reduce the overall weight considerably and lead to weight reduction of the nacelle. The grid filters are designed in small compact boxes which make the converter adaptable for different grid conditions by simple exchange. The completely reviewed service concept allows front access to all components for a quick and easy exchange. The back of the converter cabinets can be directly placed at the walls of a tower or nacelle since access to the backside of the converter is not necessary. Escape corridors can therefore be extended and assure additional safety for personal.

The new product line CONCYCLE CW 1000LD and CONCYCLE CW 2000LF are designed for the power range from 1MW to 10MW. In case of more required reactive power for weak grids, easy exchange of Power Stacks with same dimensions is possible. The decentralized control and monitoring unit allows for separate arrangement of single cabinets. A special communication protocol was developed to communicate via fiber optic links between the cabinets and the main control unit. The power cable terminals are for quick and easy installation designed to save time during testing and erection of the wind turbine.

The converter fulfills all actual grid codes. Future grid codes can be adapted by changing of few parameters. Additional options can be added at customer’s request. The extensive service concept ensures efficient and trouble free operation of the wind turbine and maximize the earnings for the owner of the wind farm.