Generation of random wind speed profiles for evaluation of stress in WT power converters

Wind turbines are subjected to wind speed variations that cause a power profile that will stress the overall system. This stress is tranfered to the power converter, resulting in temperature variations of the power devices and, hence, causing the reduction of the lifetime. The lifetime expectation changes depending on the real wind speed once the wind turbine is operating. Usually, the real wind speed profiles are employed to evaluate this stress but they do not consider all possible operation conditions and require intensive computations. To solve these issues, this paper proposes the generation of random wind speed profiles, based on the measured ones, in order to evaluate the thermal stress of the power devices based on a simplified statistical approach.