A Review of Urban Wind Energy Research: Aerodynamics and Other Challenges

Daniel Micallef and Gerard Van Bussel
Additional contact information
Daniel Micallef: Department of Environmental Design, Faculty for the Built Environment, University of Malta, 2080 MSD Msida, Malta
Gerard Van Bussel: Aerodynamics, Wind Energy, Flight Performance and Propulsion, Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, TU Delft, 2628 CD Delft, The Netherlands

Energies, 2018, vol. 11, issue 9, 1-27

Abstract: Urban wind energy research is crucial for the success or failure of wind turbines installed in the built environment. Research in this field is fragmented into various research groups working on different topics in isolation with seemingly few efforts of integrating the various fields. This review aims at highlighting the synergies between the various advances, particularly in aerodynamics, but also in other areas. Past and current work has been focused on establishing reliable wind statistics at the site of interest. Advances in building aerodynamics have provided new insight on the local flow occurring at the rotor location. An outlook toward future research and the need to treat the different flow scales in a holistic manner is emphasized given also the recent advances in rotor aerodynamics related to the effect of flow skewness and turbulence. This will shed light on the critical issues that need to be addressed by scientists in order to make urban wind energy viable for decentralized generation. Various other present challenges are discussed briefly including structural aspects, noise emissions, economics and visual impact. Research in this field should be the guidepost for more targeted certification standards, in an effort to regularize the small wind energy market.

Keywords: urban wind energy; wind resource; small-scale wind turbine; Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT); Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine (HAWT); building integrated wind energy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/11/9/2204/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/11/9/2204/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:11:y:2018:i:9:p:2204-:d:165327

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().