A framework for technico-environmental optimization of small wind turbines

Adrien Prévost, François Demichel, Vincent Léchappé, Hugo Helbling, Romain Delpoux and Xavier Brun

Applied Energy, 2025, vol. 377, issue PC, No S0306261924018853

Abstract: Small Wind Turbines (SWTs) can provide energy access and participate to energy transition by enabling local electricity production at a low environmental cost. However, there is a lack of comprehensive approaches to address the challenge of reducing the electricity footprint of SWT systems. In this article, a technico-environmental framework is proposed to enable the optimization of the environmental footprint of the electricity provided by a SWT system. The compromise between energy harvest and environmental impacts is studied by establishing and coupling life-cycle and energy models taking into account the system configuration (grid-tied, off-grid), design parameters (tower height, battery sizing), the site characteristics (roughness length, wind resource), and the user behaviour aspects (load-shifting). For considered scenarios, the results indicate that the tower height that minimizes the footprint of the provided electricity is identical for grid-tied and off-grid systems. It is in the range of 12–24 m for roughness lengths (0.1–0.5 m) and heavily depends on roughness length and wind resource. Interestingly, increasing the load shifting from 20% to 80% could help reduce by a factor two the footprint of the provided electricity in grid-tied configuration. Following these results, some recommendations are proposed regarding the scaling of the tower and the load shifting. Some perspectives are also given to improve the technico-environmental framework. The data and the source codes used in this article are provided on a public repository.

Keywords: Technico-environmental; Small wind turbine; Life cycle assessment; Tower scaling; Load shifting; Energy footprint (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2024.124502

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