Technological and Operational Aspects That Limit Small Wind Turbines Performance

José Luis Torres-Madroñero, Joham Alvarez-Montoya, Daniel Restrepo-Montoya, Jorge Mario Tamayo-Avendaño, César Nieto-Londoño and Julián Sierra-Pérez
Additional contact information
José Luis Torres-Madroñero: Grupo de Investigación en Ingeniería Aeroespacial, Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, Medellín 050031, Colombia
Joham Alvarez-Montoya: Grupo de Investigación en Ingeniería Aeroespacial, Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, Medellín 050031, Colombia
Daniel Restrepo-Montoya: Grupo de Investigación en Ingeniería Aeroespacial, Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, Medellín 050031, Colombia
Jorge Mario Tamayo-Avendaño: Grupo de Investigación en Ingeniería Aeroespacial, Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, Medellín 050031, Colombia
César Nieto-Londoño: Grupo de Investigación en Ingeniería Aeroespacial, Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, Medellín 050031, Colombia
Julián Sierra-Pérez: Grupo de Investigación en Ingeniería Aeroespacial, Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, Medellín 050031, Colombia

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 22, 1-39

Abstract: Small Wind Turbines (SWTs) are promissory for distributed generation using renewable energy sources; however, their deployment in a broad sense requires to address topics related to their cost-efficiency. This paper aims to survey recent developments about SWTs holistically, focusing on multidisciplinary aspects such as wind resource assessment, rotor aerodynamics, rotor manufacturing, control systems, and hybrid micro-grid integration. Wind resource produces inputs for the rotor’s aerodynamic design that, in turn, defines a blade shape that needs to be achieved by a manufacturing technique while ensuring structural integrity. A control system may account for the rotor’s aerodynamic performance interacting with an ever-varying wind resource. At the end, the concept of integration with other renewable source is justified, according to the inherent variability of wind generation. Several commercially available SWTs are compared to study how some of the previously mentioned aspects impact performance and Cost of Electricity (CoE). Understanding these topics in the whole view may permit to identify both tendencies and unexplored topics to continue expanding SWTs market.

Keywords: small wind turbine; distributed generation; wind energy; aerodynamics; wind resource; manufacturing; control systems; hybrid systems; microgrid integration (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: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/22/6123/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/22/6123/ (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:13:y:2020:i:22:p:6123-:d:449251

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 ().