Wind Turbine Cooling Technologies

With the increase of the unit capacity of wind turbines, the heat produced by different components rise signifi cantly. Effective cooling methods should be adopted in developing larger power wind turbine. In this chapter, the operating principle and main structure of wind turbines are fi rstly described, following with the analysis of heat production mechanisms for different components. On this basis, current cooling methods in wind turbines are presented. Also, optimal design of a liquid cooling system for 1 MW range wind turbine is conducted. Finally, some novel cooling systems are introduced and discussed.