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 Wind energy overview: Size vs. power Power from wind grows with D 2 : P = 0.5 r v 3 A = 0.5 r v 3 (p D 2 )/4  need large turbine! 15 m 80 m 112 m 126 m 160 m ‘85‘89‘87‘91‘93‘95‘97‘99‘01‘03‘ ? Year Power [MW] Diameter [m] 1 MW = 300 homes A380

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

20 Wind energy overview: Interference effects 3D  Wind Direction

21 Wind energy overview: Interference effects Wind Direction 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 = m) is a problem for  transportation  installation  maintenance  availability COST!

24 The Aeloun Harvester: Cheap, small turbine for the 3 rd 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 3 rd 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, Tower height 200 m, tower diameter 10 m, diameter of collector roof about 250 m Thermal upwind power plant

31  Questions?

32  Questions?