GE Research team demonstrated its modular multi-level convertible wind-turbine

The GE Research Converter team created a virtual 3.5 MW wind turbine in the lab to demonstrate its “Tower of Power” at full scale. Tower of Power is New modular architecture that will enable improved resiliency and reliability by isolating any issues to individual blocks without compromising the overall converter system.

A team of engineers in the Electrical Systems group at GE Research has achieved one of the world’s firsts in the power conversion sector, demonstrating an MW-scale modular, multi-level wind power converter in its lab in Upstate New York.  The demonstration successfully culminates the key objective of a five-year project through the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Manufacturing Office’s (AMO) Next Generation Electric Machines program.

While the principal objective of the program was to demonstrate the wind power converter, another positive outcome of the project was the development and demonstration of an early power conversion system for hybrid electric flight. Hybrid electric flight is another key focus area for GE Research and for the DOE’s AMO.

To pull off the wind converter demonstration, GE engineers turned one of their labs on campus into a virtual 3.5 MW wind turbine outfitted with an actual wind generator and gearbox from GE’s Renewable Energy business.  GE scientists then developed, built and integrated its modular, multi-level “Tower of Power,” as it was coined by the team into this virtual environment. The setup allowed the converter to be tested under real conditions as if a 300+ foot high wind turbine was standing tall and spinning in the middle of GE’s Research campus.

“The ability to build and test this type of breakthrough modular power conversion architecture at scale is a testament to the power of government partnership and industrial research in translating new technology into real solutions that transform the future of energy,” said Nathaniel Hawes, Principal Engineer in the Electrical Systems group at GE Research and project leader. “Through our work on this project, we have advanced the ball on future wind converter technology and created more potential opportunities to deploy this technology in other parts of the power conversion sector.”

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