Small Wind Turbines

1. Small Wind Turbines Innovation opportunities via small wind turbine testing Daniel Feszty Associate Professor Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering 8 April 2010

2. Outline • Wind energy research at Carleton University • Wind energy overview • Areas requiring research • Potential research at WCEC

3. Wind energy research at Carleton University

4. Wind energy research at Carleton University • Primarily conducted by • Rotorcraft Research Group • 4 Professors, 18 researchers • Transferring knowledge from helicopters to wind turbines

5. Wind energy research at Carleton University • Prof. Fred Nitzsche • PhD - Stanford University (1983) • Thesis on Darrieus wind turbines

6. Wind energy research at Carleton University Strong in experiments: Scaled wind farm experiment at Carleton University

7. Wind energy research at Carleton University Strong in computations: CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) simulations for a helicopter and a wind turbine

8. Wind energy research at Carleton University Our PhD graduates found employment at: - Vestas (Denmark): 2 - National Research Council, Ottawa (Wind Energy group): 3

9. Wind energy overview

10. Wind energy overview: Wind energy usage Wind energy usage in Canada: 30% growth annually!!!

11. Wind energy overview: Wind resources Mean annual wind speed distribution in Canada (Canadian Wind Atlas)

12. Wind energy overview: Wind resources Mean annual wind speed distribution in Ontario (Canadian Wind Atlas)

13. Wind energy overview: Classification of wind power Ontario inland Most of Canada Most turbines built for

14. Wind energy overview: Wind resources • Category 6 & 7 sites not available • Mostly sold out • Far from big cities • Category 3-5 sites • Not utilized so far (most of Ontario/Canada) • Lack of efficient wind turbines for them

15. Wind energy overview: Wind turbine types Two basic types of wind turbines: Vertical Axis Horizontal Axis ADV: works in any wind direction very high power DIS: medium power needs to be “yawed”(turned) into wind direction

16. Wind energy overview: Wind turbine types Two basic types of wind turbines: Vertical Axis (no yaw control, medium power, smaller): Savonius-rotor Darrieus-rotor H-rotor

17. Wind energy overview: Wind turbine types Two basic types of wind turbines: Horizontal Axis (yaw control, high power, larger):

18. 160 m 1 MW = 300 homes 126 m 112 m 80 m Diameter [m] A380 15 m Year ‘85 ‘87 ‘89 ‘91 ‘93 ‘95 ‘97 ‘99 ‘01 ‘03 ‘06 ? 0.06 0.3 0.5 1.3 1.6 2.0 4.5 5.0 8.0 Power [MW] Wind energy overview: Size vs. power • Power from wind grows with D2: • P = 0.5 r v3 A = 0.5 r v3 (p D2)/4 need large turbine!

19. Wind energy overview: Interference effects Wake interference: 30-40% loss of power when in wake!

20. W 3D Wind Direction Wind energy overview: Interference effects

21. Wind Direction Wind energy overview: Interference effects Power of the downstream turbine is reduced by 40%

22. Wind energy overview: Interference effects Scaled wind farm experiment at Carleton University

23. Wind energy overview: Modern Horizontal Axis Turbines • designed for • category 6-7 wind • "clean" flow • growing size (D = 120-160 m) is a problem for • transportation • installation • maintenance • availability COST!

24. The Aeloun Harvester: Cheap, small turbine for the 3rd world

25. Areas requiring research

26. Areas requiring research: • Smaller turbines for lower category (3-5) wind speeds • Would be very interesting for Ontario/Canada • Cheap, small turbines for 3rd world countries (“Lighting up Africa”) • What size and type? • Interference effects mitigation: • Special blade design for “dirty” flow? • Actively controlled blades? • Better wake modelling/prediction • Current wake models overpredict power by about 15% • This means $90 million loss for a 120 turbine farm

27. Areas requiring research: • To answer the above questions, one needs: • Advanced computational methods (for design and optimization) • Full-size experiments to validate these • For experiments: • Wind tunnels simply not suited (test section too small & short) • Need: “wind testing” instead of “wind tunnel testing” • Carleton University does not have a suitable site for “wind testing”

28. Potential research at West Carleton Energy Centre (WCEC)

29. Potential research at WCEC • Need for experimental testing • Carleton University needs large wind exposed site to test research turbines • WCEC could be ideal to serve as Carleton’s “wind test site” • testing small (or scaled) turbines not fitting a wind tunnel • foundation not an issue • turbines on top or at bottom of hill • data used to validate CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) • CFD used to design better wind turbines

30. Potential research at WCEC • OR: combine solar and wind research? Experimental thermal upwind power plant in Manzanares, Spain, 1985. Tower height 200 m, tower diameter 10 m, diameter of collector roof about 250 m Thermal upwind power plant

31. Questions?

32. Questions?