Large Scale Renewable Energy Resource: Wind Power
Large Scale Renewable Energy Resource: Wind Power
Large Scale Renewable Energy Resource: Wind Power
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ABOUT WIND ENERGY
Solar radiation: The ultimate source of all energy including wind energy.
1-2% of incident solar power is converted into wind.
Absorbed by Heat the surrounding
Solar energy
land and sea air and causes
temperature gradients
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GLOBAL WIND PATTERNS
The force responsible for deviation of wind is Coriolis Force.
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Kinetic energy and Power of Wind
Estimation of Kinetic energy of the wind.
For a wind speed u and air density , the energy density E
(kinetic energy per unit volume) of wind is given by:
1 2
E u (1)
2
The volume of the wind flowing per second across a cross sectional
area A = uA.
Wind power , P is the wind energy over an area A per second
1 2 1
P u Au Au 3 (2)
2 2
This shows that wind power varies as cube of the wind speed.
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Factors affecting Wind Power
If the wind speed is doubled New wind speed is 2u
1 1
Pnew A(2u)3 8 Au 3 8P
2 2
Doubling the wind speed results in 8-fold increase in the power
available in the wind.
1
P Au 3
2
Also, P A
8
Example: Power in Wind
2 2
How does the power change if the wind speed increases to 10 m/s?
P u3
Doubling the wind speed increases power
by 23=8 times.
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SOME SITES WITH STRONG
WIND
North America was found to have the greatest wind power
potential.
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HISTORY OF WIND POWER
First recorded use of wind power was in 10th Century, in Persia, for
pumping water and grinding grains using vertical axis wind mills.
Primary uses are: Grinding Corn, pumping water and sawing wood.
Horizontal axis wind mills were found more efficient than vertical
axis wind mills.
Use of wind mills peaked around 18th Century, after which they were
substituted with coal powered engines. The latter are more compact,
adaptable and source of continuous power supply. 11
HORIZONTAL AXIS WIND MILLS
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HISTORY OF WIND POWER
In 19th Century, small multivane wind mills were developed in
USA for pumping water and became very popular.
Later they were replaced by the national electricity grid.
From 1930 till date a number of wind machines were developed
for the production of electricity. These are termed as WIND
TURBINES.
During second world war, when oil was not available, Denmark has
used wind energy to meet its energy requirements.
After the 1973 OIL CRISIS, there was renewed interest in wind
power and many countries began looking at it as alternative
energy resource.
More recent alarm about global warming has stimulated further
interest in WIND ENERGY RESOURCE. 13
DESIGN OF MODERN WIND TURBINES
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HORIZONTAL AXIS WIND TURBINES (HAWT)
Two Designs: Upwind and downwind
Upwind Design: Wind strikes the blades before reaching the tower.
Down wind design: Wind strikes the blades after passing over the
tower. Thus, wind always keeps the blades away from the tower.
In this case presence of tower causes wind shadowing effect on
the blades. It causes the blades flexing and therefore more fatigue
in blades, leading to their early failure.
Practically
Viable Design 15
HORIZONTAL AXIS WIND TURBINES (HAWT)
The turbine consists of a tower. An enclosure called NACELLE is
mounted atop the tower.
Nacelle houses bearings for turbine shaft, gear
box and the generator.
These designs takes the advantage of drag and lift forces for running.
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MODERN WIND TURBINES FOR
ELECTRICITY GENERATION
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Hybrid : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba8B8CuykUk&NR=1
OPTIMUM WIND SPEED FOR TURBINE
OPERATION
STANDARD WIND POWER CLASSIFICATION SCHEME
Class 4, with wind speed ~7.0 m/s is considered as the threshold limit
for economic viability of the wind turbines.
Above table is a rough guide to choose the site for setting up wind
turbines. 21
Principle of Operation of wind turbine: Lift and Drag Force
For a body (example, cylinder) immersed in a viscous fluid, the fluid flow is
along the streamlines in the bulk of the fluid but the viscous force is quite
significant at the boundary layers close to the surface of the body.
Rotational component of flow called vorticity is generated within the boundary
layer of the fluid around the cylinder.
At a certain point called the separation point, the boundary layer becomes detached
from the surface and the vorticity is discharged into the body of the fluid. It is then
transported downstream of the fluid.
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Technical Term: TSR
Tip Speed Ratio (TSR)--This is defined as the ratio of the speed of
rotation of the outer tip of the blade and the speed of the incident
wind.
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OPTIMUM NUMBER OF BLADES IN WIND
TURBINE
For electricity generation : The tip speed of the blades is very high
and the turbulence caused by one blade on another can
significantly reduce the overall efficiency.
Most new turbines have three blades: They run smoother than 2
blade turbines because the impact of tower interference and the
variation of wind speed with height are more evenly transferred
from rotors to drive the shaft.
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Maximum Power Extraction Efficiency
As the wind flows through the turbine, part of the kinetic energy of the wind is
transferred to the turbine. This causes the turbine to rotate. In this process the wind
slows down.
Using concepts of mechanics and fluid dynamics, Power extracted Pext, is given by
16 1
Pext ( Au 3 ) 0.59 Incident wind Power
27 2
=density of air and A is the area swept by
the rotating turbine blades and u is the free
incident wind speed
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Energy output from a turbine using
average power in the wind………….
The actual energy delivered and the deliverable energy at the rated power differ from
each other.
The ratio of the annual energy yield to that which would be produced at the rated power is
called capacity factor (CF).
Wind plants installed in Class-4 and Class-5 sites, result in CFs of roughly 30% - 40%.
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Parameter governing CF
CF is affected by wind speed
Below the cut in wind speed vc, the turbine is not
turned on since the power generated is insufficient to
off set generator losses.
At vF, the cut off wind speed or furling, the winds are just high and too dangerous, so the
turbine shuts down.
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Variation of Wind Turbine Capacity Factor
as a function of wind speed
CF is very low if a lot of wind is below the cut
in wind speed.
Thus, once the design specifications of actual turbines are known, the energy
delivered by the turbine increase linearly with average wind speed.
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New Designs of Wind Turbines
Vortex bladeless:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDuxK8iljbk
wind lens
Applications of Wind turbines
based on the output power
1. Large turbines are connected to the national electricity grid for
power production (Capacity> 150 kW).
3. Small stand alone turbines (<10 kW) are used for battery
charging, water pumping, heating etc. For battery charging, the size
range, 25-150 Watt is sufficient(i.e., blades with 0.5m-1.5 m
diameter). Around 200,000 small battery charging wind turbines are
now in use.
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What is Wind Farm
A wind farm constitutes a group of wind turbines located close at a place.
These are used for the production of electric power. Individual turbines are
interconnected with a medium voltage (usually 34.5 kV) power collection
system and communications network.
At a substation, this medium-voltage electrical current is increased in voltage
with a transformer for connection to the high voltage transmission system.
A large wind farm may consist of a few dozen to several hundred individual
wind turbines, and cover an extended area of hundreds of square miles, but the
land between the turbines may be used for agricultural or other purposes.
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Wind farms Classification based on location
Onshore, nearshore and offshore are the most widely used classification of
wind farms by location. There are also aerial turbines.
Each class of turbines has unique design characteristics intended to suit their
specific location.
The size of a turbine will influence its power generating capacity. The
smaller turbines, which produce under 50 kilowatts, are most commonly used
to power water pumps, telecommunication dishes, and homes.
A 5-15 kilowatt turbine should suffice the need of home that uses under 10,000
kilowatt hours of electricity per year. This type of system will cost between
$6,000-$22,000 to install.
This is done to exploit the topographic acceleration of the wind due to its
passage over the ridge.
The additional wind speeds gained in this way contributes significantly towards
enhancement in the amount of energy produced by the turbines.
Hence, due care needs to be taken in deciding the location of the turbines since
shifting of locations even by 30 metres can cause two folds increase in the power
output.
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Offshore Wind Farms
Offshore wind power development zones are generally considered to be ten
kilometers or more from land.
The average wind speed is usually considerably higher and stable over open
water of the sea.
Capacity factors (utilisation rates) are considerably higher than for onshore and
nearshore locations.
Offshore wind turbines are less obtrusive than turbines on land, as their apparent
size and noise is mitigated by large distance from habitation.
Wind turbines in offshore farms can also be bigger in size than those located on
land because it is easier to transport very large turbine components by sea.
Existing offshore technology: Fixed-bottom, foundation-based tower
technology
In areas with extended shallow continental shelves, water not deeper than 40 m
(130 feet), windy but without Category 4 or higher storms, fixed-bottom
turbines are now available and in use as well.
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Offshore Wind Farms: Limitations
Compared to onshore wind towers, off shore winds tower is more complex and
costly to install and maintain.
Offshore foundations for towers are more expensive than the onshore
foundations.
Corroding of Offshore towers due to saltwater environment also enhances
maintenance cost.
Repair and maintenance of Offshore Turbines are usually costlier than those of
the onshore turbines. Hence, for a desired power production, it is preferred to
reduce the number of wind turbines by installing the largest available units.
The United Kingdom is using offshore wind turbines to generate enough power to
produce 630 MW of power and light every home in the U.K. by 2020.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jul/04/offshore-windfarm-opens-
thames-estuary 41
Upcoming offshore technology: Floating wind turbine
A floating wind turbine is an offshore wind turbine mounted on a floating structure that
allows the turbine to generate electricity in water depths where bottom-mounted towers are
not feasible.
Floating wind parks are wind farms that site several floating wind turbines closely together
to take advantage of common infrastructure such as power transmission facilities.
Wind turbines
cables
The initial capital cost of floating turbines is competitive with bottom-mounted, near-shore
wind turbines. 42
Near shore Wind Farms
Near shore turbine installations are on land within three kilometres
of a shoreline or, on water within ten kilometres of land.
These areas are good sites for turbine installation, because of high
wind speeds produced by convection due to differential heating of
land and sea each day.
Cost of a rotor is roughly proportional to its diameter but power delivered is proportional to
the square of diameter.
Taller towers reach in higher winds which increases energy faster than the tower cost.
Planning, permitting, site preparation, and installation costs don’t increase much when
size increases.
Servicing large turbines is not much different from servicing small ones and newer
turbines are designed to need less servicing in the first place.
Wind power plants can be installed rapidly. Example: 50 MW power plant can be in
operation in less than a year from signing the contract.
All these factors have contributed towards reduction in the capital costs for US projects by
85% in the last two decades.
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Environmental Impact
Atmospheric emission: No direct atmospheric emissions are caused by
the operation of wind turbines.
Energy balance: Energy invested in production, installation,
operation and maintenance of a typical wind turbine has a payback
time of less than half a year of its operation.
Land use: Wind farms have the advantage of dual land use. 99%
of the area occupied by a wind farm can be used for agriculture.
As a thumb rule wind farms require 0.08-0.13 km2/MW (8-13
MW/km2).
Noise emission: Noise produced by wind turbines is composed of a
mechanical component and an aero dynamical component. For rotor
diameters up to 20 m, mechanical component dominates while for
larger rotors, aero dynamical component dominates.
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Environmental Impact
Visual Impact: The modern wind turbines with hub height greater than 40 m and blade length
greater than 20 m have a visual impact, which mainly is the effect of moving shadows of the
rotor blades.
Interference with electromagnetic communication systems: The wind turbines can reflect
electromagnetic waves, which will be scattered and diffracted. As a result of this, the
telecommunication links are disturbed.
Safety of personnel: Accidents with wind turbines involving humans are extremely rare.
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