Wind turbine reliability characteristics and offshore availability assessment

Since the early 90s, wind energy industry has stepped offshore due to a number of interesting characteristics compared to onshore wind harvesting. At least when initially realized, offshore wind farms were not really different than onshore ones, since the same wind turbine technology with slight modifications was directly applied to the new...

Princess Elisabeth Research Station at Antarctica: Renewable Energy Systems design, simulation and optimization

The Earth’s climate is changing. A better understanding on the climate mechanism is essential for future sustainable development. As Antarctica has an important role in the Earth system, a new Belgian research station - named Princess Elisabeth - is currently under construction in the Sør Rondane mountains (Droning Maud Land, East Antarctica)....

Feasibility study of a new type of wind turbine with a single blade, wagging in a vertical plane

The Windstem is a horizontal axis wind turbine for the urban environment that flaps back and forth like a bird’s wing instead of turning full circles. A successful wind turbine of this type has not yet been made. It was investigated whether a wind turbine with a wagging blade, the Windstem, can be competitive at any location with other wind...

Suppression of classical Flutter using a ‘smart’ Rotor

The mechanics of aeroelastic instabilities is particularly important in relation to the next generation of wind turbine designs. Sizes approaching the 10MW capacity will have a rotor diameter somewhere in the order of 170m. This could mean much higher loads and more flexible blade designs than current MW wind turbines, most probably resulting in...

Validation of wind turbine wake models: Using wind farm data and wind tunnel measurements

Simulation of Aeroacoustic Emission For Small Wind Turbines

Noise radiation is in certain countries still a major limitation on the further expansion of wind energy. Until now, the majority of the small wind turbines were sited in sparsely populated areas like open field far from inhabited regions. However, today the tendency exists towards integrating small wind turbines closer to populated areas....

Improving the hydrodynamic performance of a combined Wells-Darrieus rotor

The Design and Testing of Airfoils for Application in Small Vertical Axis Wind Turbines

In recent years more focus is put on the applications of wind turbines in the urban environment. One of the ways to do this is using a turbine with a vertical axis (a VAWT). This type of wind turbines is around for many centuries. The modern equivalent which is based on lift producing blades only exists for 30 years. In this period airfoils for...

The employment potential of a Dutch offshore wind energy market

Wind energy is currently one of the fastest growing markets in the world. In the Netherlands the potential for onshore wind energy is not large because of siting problems. Therefore the focus in the Netherlands has shifted from onshore to offshore wind energy because the wind climate offshore is substantially better than onshore. For the Dutch...

Design of an urban wind turbine with diffuser

New wind turbines for placement in the urban environment appeared in the recent years. These urban wind turbines are still expensive; they produce electricity against higher costs then the current consumer’s price for electricity in the Netherlands. Another drawback for most of the new wind turbines is that they are too small for placement upon...