This paper presents a new simulator using a dc motor drive to simulate the
characteristics of a vertical-axis wind turbine in steady-state operation. The drive system
consists of a separately excited dc motor fed via a thyristor converter. This drive is
controlled by its Artificial Neural Network (ANN) inverse model using the wind turbine
model as a reference. The controller is implemented by a LabView software program
which provides a great flexibility and gives the possibility to simulate any wind turbine
characteristics. The proposed simulator is tested for both dynamic and steady state
modes at different wind velocities and loads. It is shown that the steady-state
characteristics of the proposed simulator follow, satisfactorily, those of the actual wind
turbine.