Technological and Operational Aspects That Limit Small Wind Turbines Performance

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 multidiscipl...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEnergies (Basel) Vol. 13; no. 22; p. 6123
Main Authors Torres-Madroñero, José Luis, Alvarez-Montoya, Joham, Restrepo-Montoya, Daniel, Tamayo-Avendaño, Jorge Mario, Nieto-Londoño, César, Sierra-Pérez, Julián
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 01.11.2020
Subjects
Aerodynamics
Alternative energy sources
Atmospheric boundary layer
Control systems
Costs
Distributed generation
Energy industry
Energy sources
Hydroelectric power
Integration
Manufacturing
Market penetration
Noise control
Renewable energy sources
Rotor aerodynamics
small wind turbine
Turbines
Urban areas
wind energy
Wind power
wind resource
United Kingdom > UK
United States > US
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Summary: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.
ISSN:1996-1073
1996-1073
DOI:10.3390/en13226123