Generator types in wind turbines

[EEwyoming]

What are the percentages of types of generators commonly used in wind turbines? To clarify, what percentage are regular squirrel-cage machines? What percentage are doubly-fed machines, permanent magnet machines, synchronous machines, and so on. I'm looking for a general idea of these statistics.

 

[EEwyoming]

...Or where can I look to find this information?

 

[mgb_phys]

It depends what you are considering.
By number the majority will be simple 12-14v dc generators simply because most wind generators out there are small units used for RVs or boats.
For large power installations most modern systems will be double fed asynchronous because it's the most efficent and these systems have complex power controllers anyway to be able to feed to the grid.

 

[EEwyoming]

Thanks mgb, here I'm referring to wind farms and large systems tied to the grid.

From what I've seen, the doubly-fed is the first choice usually, as you say. However, I'm hoping to find some specific statistics and I haven't been able to. I've even tried contacting the EIA. No reply. Any wind experts out there know?

 

[Topher925]

In my experience, probably 97%+ are DFAS machines. The newer technologies are starting to get away from using gearboxes and use directly driven PM synchronous machines.

 

[EEwyoming]

Thanks Topher