A Review on Wind Energy Conversion System and Enabling Technology Devashish Research Scholar, Dept. of EEE National Institute of Technology Jamshedpur, India devashish.sit@gmail.com Amarnath Thakur Professor, Dept. of EEE National Institute of Technology Jamshedpur, India Swetapadma Panigrahi, R R Behera Research Scholar, Dept. of EEE National Institute of Technology Jamshedpur, India Abstract—In recent years, concern has grown towards renewable energy sources particularly wind energy for the production of electricity. The scientist and researchers have gone through rigorous study and experimentationto search the solution for fruitful utilization of wind energy. Our day to day activity is heavily based on energy, hence the work towards energy research is highly important and sensitive. As a result of extensive research, wind energy is now being widely used for electrical power generation. Current paper make an effort to exhibit a short review of wind energy conversion system, highlighting its aerodynamics, electrical, mechanical aspects, and different control strategies. The crucial survey findings, ongoing research and future possible improvements for wind energy conversion system have been discussed. Keywords—Wind turbine; Pitch control; Maximum power point tracking (MPPT); Energy storage; Electrical generator. I. INTRODUCTION It is commonly well known fact that the Earth’s fossil energy resources like coal, gas, oil are limited.Global consumption of these resources is growing by each passing day. In this grim situation renewable energy will have to fulfil the increasing demand of energy.Renewable energy is clean form of energy as it has no emission or unwanted by-products which can cause harm to the environment. Utilization of renewable energy is mostly in its conversion to electrical energy. High cost of oil caused an energy crisis in 1973,after that western countries started to explore solutionto utilize their clean renewable energy effectively [1]. Due to excessive exploitation of conventional sources like petroleum, coal, and natural gas for energy requirement, the emission of carbon dioxide and other gases which are detrimental to environment areincreasing. Because of the rise of harmful gases, average global temperature is rising at alarming pace. The solution of this serious environment related issue lies in the use of clean, long term eco-friendly renewable energy. Therefore, many countries have already initiated their research work for the development of newtechnology in order to utilize the renewable and clean energy that includes wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and tidal energy. Among all these existent energy sources, wind energy is one of the most efficient energy source for the generation of power having capacity to fulfil world’s energy needs [2]. Due to its significant growth among other renewable energy sources, it is becoming a vital source of energy in the present energy supply system.Fig. 1. shows the accumulative wind power capacity from the year 2004 to 2015.In the year 2015, total of 422GW wind power generation was installed worldwide, with the increase of 60 GWonly in 2015 and it is aimedto reach ~760 GW in 2020. India has placed fifth with an installed capacity of 237.7 GW in the world’s energygeneration market. Among its present installed power generation capacity that is more than 207.8 GW, renewable counts for more than 25 GW [4]. A pie chart expressing different renewable energy share for electricity production has been in Fig. 2. Total installation capacity of wind turbine in India is shown in Fig. 3. This paper is purposedto provide a brief insight of wind energy conversion system with emphasis on its electrical and aerodynamic aspects. Moreover, it will discuss current technologies associated with wind energy conversion system (WECS), its challenges and future research direction. II. WIND TECHNOLOGY Wind energy is directly being used as mechanical power or indirectly as electrical power. Wind turbine is the vital part of WECS that converts wind power into electrical power.A WECS is a complex electromechanical energy conversion system consists of many subsystems and components [6]. Wind turbine is most crucial part of WECS which uses power in wind for conversion into electrical energy. Fig. 1. Installed wind power global capacity from 2004 to 2015 [3] 2016 International Conference on Electrical Power and Energy Systems (ICEPES) Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, Bhopal, India. Dec 14-16, 2016 978-1-5090-2476-6/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE 527