Abstract
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in tidal current energy as it is a potential source for green electricity generation and the most predictable form of ocean renewable energy. Due to the harsh marine environment, the Tidal Current Turbine (TCT) system has to be designed to be robust and to work reliably with high availability to minimize the need for intervention. Thus, fault tolerant control strategies are needed to enable the system to continue operating under some fault conditions, this will reduce the power generation cost and also increase the system robustness. This paper introduces some of the different fault conditions that may occur in TCT systems such as sensor faults, especially tidal current sensors. Potential solutions for these faults are then introduced. The paper then presents a standalone TCT generation system model with perturb and observe (P&O) control; this control aims to solve the tidal current speed sensor fault problem, ensuring that the system operates near the maximum power point (MPP) without the tidal current speed sensor. The control system is simulated using MATLAB/Simulink, for a TCT, utilizing a permanent synchronous generator (PMSG) and a boost converter.
