Modeling the aeroacoustic noise of large wind energy systems for sound damping control purposes

An important problem for the social acceptance of the wind turbines is the noise that they introduce into the environment, particularly during the night hours in towns close to the wind farms. This problem is normally mitigated by reducing the rotor speed. The control system implementation requires a change in the setpoint of the collective pitch controller. This leads, consequently, to a minor power conversion. The present contribution uses simple models for noise emission, propagation, and prediction in order to design controllers that mitigate noise with reduced power losses. The parameter tuning problem is solved with a game-theoretic approach and multi-objective optimisation. The simulation results show an increment in the power conversion for the same legal noise limits. Hence, the concept looks promising for applications to real machines.