Fundamentals of

Wind Energy

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 Wind Energy Characteristics
 Wind energy is a special form of kinetic energy in air as it flows. Wind energy can
be either converted into electrical energy by power converting machines or
directly used for pumping water, sailing ships, or grinding gain.
 Wind power
 Kinetic energy exists whenever an object of a given mass is in motion with a
translational or rotational speed. When air is in motion, the kinetic energy in
moving air can be determined as
1
()
2
Ek = m u (1)
2
 where m is the air mass and ū is the mean wind speed over a suitable time
period.
– The wind power can be obtained by differentiating the kinetic energy in wind
with respect to time
dE k 1
( )
2
Pw = = m u (2)
dt 2

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 Wind Energy Characteristics

 Only a small portion of wind power can be converted into

electrical power. When wind passes through a wind turbine
and drives blades to rotate, the corresponding wind mass
flowrate is
m =  Au (3)
where ρ is the air density and A is the swept area of blades,
as shown in Fig.
 Substituting (3) into (2), the available power in wind Pw can
be expressed as
1
()
3
Pw =  A u
2 (4)

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 Wind Energy Characteristics

 Blade swept area

A = ( +r) −r2 =
 ( + 2r )
2
(5)
 
 where l s the length of wind blades and r is the radius of the hub. Thus, by doubling the
length of wind blades, the swept area can be increased by the factor up to 4. When l >> 2
r,A≈πl2.
 Air density
 Another important parameter that directly affects the wind power generation is the
density of air, which can be calculated from the equation of state:
p
= (6)
RT
 where p is the local air pressure, R is the gas constant (287 J/kg-K for air), and T is the
4 local air temperature in K.
 Wind Energy Characteristics

 The hydrostatic equation states that whenever there is no vertical

motion, the difference in pressure between two heights is caused
by the mass of the air layer:
(7)
dp = −  gdz
 Combining eqns (6) and (7), yields

dp g (8)
=− dz
p RT

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 Wind Energy Characteristics
 Wind power density
 Wind power density is a comprehensive index in evaluating the
wind resource at a particular site.
 It is the available wind power in airflow through a perpendicular
cross-sectional unit area in a unit time period.

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 Wind Characteristics
 Wind varies with
 The geographical locations,
 Time of day,
 Season,
 Height above the earth’s surface,
 Weather,
 Local landforms.

 The understanding of the wind characteristics will help

 Optimize wind turbine design,
 Develop wind measuring techniques,
 Select wind farm sites.

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 Wind Characteristics

 Wind speed
 Wind speed is one of the most critical characteristics in wind power
generation.
 Wind speed varies in both time and space, determined by many
factors such as geographic and weather conditions.
 Because wind speed is a random parameter, measured wind speed
data are usually dealt with using statistical methods.

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 Wind Characteristics

 Weibull distribution
 The variation in wind speed at a particular site can be best described using the Weibull
distribution function , which illustrates the probability of different mean wind speeds
occurring at the site during a period of time.
 The probability density function of a Weibull random variable ū is:

 k  u k −1   u k 
   exp  −    u 0
( )
f u,k , =      




0 u 0

 where λ is the scale factor which is closely related to the mean wind speed and k is the
shape factor which is a measurement of the width of the distribution. These two
parameters can be determined from the statistical analysis of measured wind speed data
at the site.
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 Wind Characteristics

 Wind turbulence
 Wind turbulence is the fluctuation in wind speed in short time scales, especially
for the horizontal velocity component.
 The wind speed u(t) at any instant time t can be considered as having two

u ( t ) = u + u (t )
components: '
 the mean wind speed ū and
 the instantaneous speed fluctuation u′( t )
 Wind turbulence has a strong impact on the power output fluctuation of wind
turbine.
 Heavy turbulence may generate large dynamic fatigue loads acting on the
turbine and thus reduce the expected turbine lifetime or result in turbine failure.

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 Wind Characteristics
 Wind turbulence
 In selection of wind farm sites, the knowledge of wind turbulence intensity is
crucial for the stability of wind power production.
 The wind turbulence intensity I is defined as the ratio of the standard deviation
σu to the mean wind velocity ū:
u
I =
u
 where both σu and ū are measured at the same point and averaged over the
same period of time.

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 Wind Characteristics

 Wind gust
 Wind gust refers to a phenomenon that a wind blasts with a sudden
increase in wind speed in a relatively small interval of time.
 In case of sudden turbulent gusts, wind speed, turbulence, and
wind shear may change drastically.
 To ensure safe operation of wind farms, wind gust predictions are
highly desired. Several different gust prediction methods have been
proposed.

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 Wind Characteristics
 Wind direction
 Statistical data of wind directions over a long period of time is very important in
the site selection of wind farm and the layout of wind turbines in the wind farm.
 The wind rose diagram is a useful tool of analyzing wind data that are related to
wind directions at a particular location over a specific time period (year, sea
 This circular diagram displays the relative frequency of wind
 directions in 8 or 16 principal directions. son, month, week, etc.).
 There are 16 radial lines in the wind rose diagram, with 22.5° apart from each
other. The length of each line is proportional to the frequency of wind direction.
The frequency of calm or near calm air is given as a number in the central circle.

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 Wind Characteristics

 Wind shear
 Wind shear is a meteorological phenomenon in which wind increases with the height
above the ground.
 The effect of height on the wind speed is mainly due to roughness on the earth’s surface
and can be estimated using the Hellmann power equation that relates wind speeds at two
different heights 
z 
u (z ) = u (z 0 ) 
z0 
 where z is the height above the earth’s surface, z0 is the reference height for which wind
speed u(z0) is known, and α is the wind shear coefficient.
 Because the power output of wind turbine strongly depends on the wind speed at the
hub height, modern wind turbines are built at the height greater than 80 m, for capturing
more wind energy and lowering cost per unit power output.

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 Modern wind turbines

 The average turbine size of wind installations

was 300 kW until the early 1990s. New
machines being installed are in the 1- to 3-MW
capacity range.
 Wind turbines of 5-MW capacity have been
fully developed and are under test operation
in several countries. Figure below is a
conceptual layout of a modern multi-
megawatt wind tower suitable for utility-scale
applications.

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 Wind turbine classification

1) Horizontal-axis and vertical-axis wind turbines:

 Modern wind turbines can be classified into the horizontal-axis and
vertical-axis turbines.
 Most commercial wind turbines today belong to the horizontal-axis
type, in which the rotating axis of blades is parallel to the wind
stream.
 The advantages of this type of wind turbines include
 the high turbine efficiency,
 high power density,
 Low cut-in wind speeds,
 low cost per unit power output.
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 Horizontal-axis and vertical-axis wind
turbines
 Several typical vertical-axis wind turbines are
shown in Fig. below . The blades of the vertical-axis
wind turbines rotate with respect to their vertical
axes that are perpendicular to the ground.
 (a) Darrius; (b) Savonius;
 (c) Solarwind™; (d) Helical ;
 (e) Noguchi; (f) Maglev;
 (g) Cochrane

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 Horizontal-axis and vertical-axis wind
turbines
 A significant advantage of vertical-axis wind turbine
is that the turbine can accept wind from any
direction and thus no control is needed
• The vertical-axis wind turbines must use an external
energy source to rotate the blades during
initialization. Because the axis of the wind turbine is
supported only on one end at the ground, its
maximum practical height is thus limited.
• Due to the lower wind power efficiency, vertical-
axis wind turbines today make up only a small
percentage of wind turbines.

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 Wind Turbine Classification
 Upwind and downwind wind turbines
 Based on the configuration of the wind
rotor with respect to the wind flowing
direction, the horizontal-axis wind turbines
can be further classified as upwind and
downwind wind turbines.
 The majority of horizontal-axis wind
turbines being used today are upwind
turbines, in which the wind rotors face the
wind.
 The main advantage of upwind designs is
to avoid the distortion of the flow field as
the wind passes though the wind tower
and nacelle.

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 Wind Turbine Classification
 Downwind turbine, wind blows first through the nacelle and tower
and then the rotor blades.
 This configuration enables the rotor blades to be made more
flexible without considering tower strike.
 The wind power output generated from a downwind turbine
fluctuates greatly, because of the influence of the distorted
unstable wakes behind the tower and nacelle.
 The blades in a downwind wind turbine may produce higher
impulsive or thumping noise.

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 Wind Turbine Capacity

 Wind turbines can be divided into a number of broad categories in

view of their rated capacities: micro, small, medium, large, and
ultra-large wind turbines.
 Micro wind turbines:- turbine with the rated power less than
several kilowatts can be categorized as micro wind turbine.
 Small wind turbines:- Are usually refer to the turbines with the
output power less than 100 kW. Small wind turbines have been
extensively used at residential houses, farms, and other individual
remote applications such as water pumping stations, telecom sites,
etc., in rural regions.

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 Wind Turbine Capacity

 Medium wind turbines:- are the most common wind turbines with
power ratings from 100 kW to 1 MW. This type of wind turbines can
be used either on-grid or off-grid systems for village power, hybrid
systems, distributed power, wind power plants, etc.
 Large wind turbines:- are the Megawatt wind turbines up to 10
MW. Most wind farms presently use megawatt wind turbines,
especially in offshore wind farms.
 Ultra-large wind turbines:- are referred to wind turbines with the
capacity more than 10 MW. This type of wind turbine is still in the
earlier stages of research and development.

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 Direct Drive and Geared Drive Wind Turbines

 According to the drivetrain condition

in a wind generator system, wind
turbines can be classified as either
direct drive or geared drive groups.
 Geared drive: It used to increase the
generator rotor rotating speed to gain
a higher power output.
 The direct-drive concept is more
superior in terms of energy efficiency,
reliability, and design simplicity.

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 On-grid and off-grid wind turbines
 Wind turbines can be used for either on-grid or off-grid
applications.
 Most medium-size and almost all large-size wind turbines are used
in grid tied applications.
 For on-grid wind turbine systems there is no energy storage
problem.
 Most of small wind turbines are off-grid for residential homes,
farms, telecommunications, and other applications.
 Off-grid wind turbines are usually used in connection with
batteries, diesel generators, and photovoltaic systems for improving
the stability of wind power supply
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 Onshore and Offshore
Wind Turbines
 Onshore wind turbines have many
advantages including lower cost of
foundations, easier integration with
the electrical-grid network, lower cost
in tower building and turbine
installation, and more convenient
access for operation and maintenance.
 Offshore wind turbines can make
higher power output and operate
more hours each year compared with
the same turbine installed onshore.

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 Wind Turbine Configuration
 Most of the modern large wind turbines are horizontal-axis turbines
with typically three blades.

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