Abstract: Wind Power is one of the fast growing renewable energy source in India and the world. India, in particular, is among top five countries in wind power generation with present Installed capacity of over 18000 MW and more. As demand grows, generation capacity in modern wind turbine goes in Megawatt scale. A modern big turbine requires sensing and controlling of various parameters like temperatures of moving parts. Fibre Optics with its electrical isolation and being light weight characteristics can have great potential to sense control parameters of wind turbine and to communicate to the control unit. Fibre optic sensors are precise and reliable under electrical hazardous environment of wind energy. Fibre Optic Technology has proved itself in present generation Communication system. The same high speed long, distance communication Networking can apply in onshore and offshore wind farm. The lower attenuation, greater bandwidth compared to copper cables and above all, immunity to high electric power, fibre optics are proving its significant role in automation of wind turbines. The signals that carry optical fibre provide reliable information for health monitoring and controls of wind turbines.
Keywords: Fibre Optic sensors, Fibre optics communications, Renewable energy, Wind power Plant(WPP),Wind energy converter (WEC), Control and Monitoring.