Patent ID: 7837126

Claim:
A method for cooling components within a wind turbine structure, comprising: establishing a recirculating airstream of internal air within the structure; for a defined set of operational conditions of the wind turbine that affect a required cooling capacity, controllably augmenting the recirculating airstream with external air to increase cooling capacity of the recirculating airstream; balancing the amount of external air introduced into the structure with the amount of relatively hotter internal air within the structure so as to achieve a desired balance of temperature and relative humidity within the structure; wherein the given set of operational conditions are ambient air temperature and power generation level of the wind turbine and for a given power generation level, control of the recirculating airstream and the amount of external air introduced into the structure are a function of ambient air temperature; and, wherein the ambient air temperature is divided into a plurality of temperature ranges and power generation level is divided into a plurality of power level ranges, and for different combinations of power level range and ambient air temperature range, control setpoints are established for control of the recirculating airstream and the amount of external air introduced into the structure.