Power electronics gradually
become more and more advanced and bring in significant
performance improvements for the wind turbines—not only
reducing the mechanical stress and increase the energy yield,
but also enable the whole WTS to act like a completely
controllable generation unit being able to much better integrate
the wind power into the power grid [2]–[6], [34]–[37].
The scope of this paper is to give a status overview and
discuss some technology trends of power electronics used
for wind power application. Initially, the technology and
market developments of wind power generation are generally
introduced. Next two dominant wind turbine concepts as well
as the potential converter topologies are addressed. Then
some control methods and demands are briefly explained for
the state-of-theart wind turbines. Furthermore, the emerging
challenges for future wind power generation are discussed and
some final conclusions are given.