Sentec, a smart metering technology specialist and product development company, has adapted an operation critical motor drive that enables Wind Technologies’ wind generator design to be manufactured cost-effectively and also be retrofitted on to existing wind turbine nacelles.

Wind Technologies’ core brushless doubly fed generator design needed a special control system not currently available.

Sentec says it solved the problem by integrating an off the shelf motor drive with a high efficiency insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) module to enable bi-directional power flow between the grid and control winding.

The test unit is currently located in Cambridge, UK.