Unit III: Wind Energy Technology

According to the data available on website of Ministry of New & Renewable Energy (MNRE),
following are the achievements of India in the sector of renewable energy:
 Globally 4th position in overall Renewable Energy
 42% Cumulative Installed Capacity from non-fossil fuel sources; 50% targeted till
2030
 Renewable Power generation (excl. large hydro) increased nearly 3 times from 61
Billion Units (BU) to 180 BU since 2014-15
 Solar Power installed capacity increased approx. 30 times from 2.6 GW to 70.10 GW
since 2014.
 Wind capacity increased 2 times from 21 GW to 42.6 GW since 2014.
 About $78 Billion investment since 2014 (including $10.27 Billion Foreign Direct
Investment)
 3rd highest RE capacity addition of 63 GW in last 5 years
Table 3.1:

Table 3.2:

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Wind Power
 The rising concerns over global warming, environmental pollution, and energy security have
increased interest in developing renewable and environmentally friendly energy sources
such as wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal, hydrogen, and biomass as the replacements
for fossil fuels.
 Wind energy can provide suitable solutions to the global climate change and energy crisis.
 The utilization of wind power essentially eliminates emissions of CO2, SO2, NOx and other
harmful wastes as in traditional coal-fuel power plants or radioactive wastes in nuclear
power plants.
 By further diversifying the energy supply, wind energy dramatically reduces the dependence
on fossil fuels that are subject to price and supply instability, thus strengthening global
energy security.

Figure 3.1: Global installed wind power capacity in GW (World Wind Energy Association
report 2023)

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Table 3.3: Top 14 wind energy producing countries + rest of the world (all figures in GW)

China represents the by far largest market share with an added capacity of 23.8 GW in 2023.
India, Brazil and the USA added more than 2 GW within the first six months of 2023. Germany
and France showed the strongest growth in Europe, each adding above 1 GW.
 It has been estimated that the total solar power received by the earth is approximately
1.8×1011 MW.
 Of this solar input, only 2% (i.e. 3.6×109 MW) is converted into wind energy and about 35%
of wind energy is dissipated within 1000 m of the earth’s surface.
 Therefore, the available wind power that can be converted into other forms of energy is
approximately 1.26×10 9 MW.
 Because this value represents 20 times the rate of the present global energy consumption,
wind energy in principle could meet entire energy needs of the world.

Advantages of Wind Power:

 Unlike fossil fuels that emit harmful gases and nuclear power that generates radioactive
wastes, wind power is a clean and environmentally friendly energy source.
 An unlimited and free energy source, available on most regions of the earth.
 More extensive use of wind power would help reduce the demands for fossil fuels, which
may run out sometime in this century, according to their present consumptions.
 The cost per kWh of wind power is much lower than that of solar power

History of wind energy applications

The use of wind energy can be traced back thousands of years to many ancient civilizations.
The ancient human histories have revealed that wind energy was discovered and used
independently at several sites of the earth.

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Sailing: As early as about 4000 B.C., the ancient Chinese were the first to attach sails to their
primitive rafts.
Wind in metal smelting processes: About 300 BC, ancient Sinhalese had taken advantage of
the strong monsoon winds to provide furnaces with sufficient air for raising the temperatures
inside furnaces in excess of 1100°C in iron smelting processes. This technique was capable of
producing high-carbon steel.

Figure 3.2: Ancient Chinese Ships

Wind mills: The use of windmills in China was very old for at least approximately 1800 years.
The practical vertical axis windmills were built in Persia for grain grinding and water pumping,
as recorded by a Persian geographer in the ninth century. The horizontal axis windmills have
become dominant in Europe and North America for many centuries due to their higher
operation efficiency and technical advantages over vertical axis windmills.
Wind turbines: wind turbines are used to convert wind energy to electricity. The first
automatically operated wind turbine in the world was designed and built by Charles Brush from
Ohio, America in 1888. This wind turbine was equipped with 144 cedar blades having a
rotating diameter of 17 m. It generated a peak power of 12 kW to charge batteries that supply
DC current to lamps and electric motors.

Figure 3.3: The first wind turbine by Charles Brush (1888)

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Power from wind: 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.
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

where m is the air mass and 𝑢̅ 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, i.e.:

However, 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
flow rate is

where  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 P w can be expressed as

Figure 3.4: Swept area of wind turbine blades

An examination of Eq. (4) reveals that in order to obtain a higher wind power, it requires a
higher wind speed, a longer length of blades for gaining a larger swept area, and a higher air
density. Because the wind power output is proportional to the cubic power of the mean wind
speed, a small variation in wind speed can result in a large change in wind power.

Blade swept area: As shown in above Fig., the blade swept area can be calculated from the
formula:
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where l is 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 l 2.

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:

where p is the local air pressure, R is the gas constant (287 J/kg-K for air), and T is the local
air temperature in K.
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:

where g is the acceleration of gravity. Combining Eq. (6) and (7), yields

The acceleration of gravity g decreases with the height above the earth’s surface z:

where g0 is the acceleration of gravity at the ground and D is the diameter of the earth. However,
for the acceleration of gravity g, the variation in height can be ignored because D is much larger
than 4 z.
In addition, temperature is inversely proportional to the height. Assume that dT/dz = c, it can
be derived that

where p0 and T0 are the air pressure and temperature at the ground, respectively. Combining
Eqs. (6) and (10), it gives

This equation indicates that the density of air decreases nonlinearly with the height above the
sea level.

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. The classes of wind power density at two
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standard wind measurement heights are listed in Table 1. Some of wind resource assessments
utilize 50 m towers with sensors installed at intermediate levels (10 m, 20 m, etc.). For large-
scale wind plants, class rating of 4 or higher is preferred.

Wind turbine classification:

Wind turbines can be classified according to the turbine generator configuration, airflow path
relatively to the turbine rotor, turbine capacity, the generator-driving pattern, the power supply
mode, and the location of turbine installation.

Horizontal-axis wind turbines (HAWT) & vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWT):

When considering the configuration of the rotating axis of rotor blades, 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.
Advantages of HAWT:
 High turbine efficiency,
 High power density,
 Low cut-in wind speeds,
 Low cost per unit power output.
Several typical vertical-axis wind turbines are shown in Fig. The blades of the vertical-axis
wind turbines rotate with respect to their vertical axes that are perpendicular to the ground.
Advantages of VAWT:
 The turbine can accept wind from any direction and thus no yaw control is
needed.
 Since the wind generator, gearbox, and other main turbine components can be
set up on the ground, it greatly simplifies the wind tower design and
construction, and consequently reduces the turbine cost.

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Limitations of VAWT:
 It 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, these turbines today make up only a
small percentage of wind turbines.

Figure 3.5. Wind Turbine Configurations

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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.
For a 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. However, because of the influence of the distorted unstable wakes
behind the tower and nacelle, the wind power output generated from a downwind turbine
fluctuates greatly.
In addition, the unstable flow field may result in more aerodynamic losses and introduce more
fatigue loads on the turbine. Furthermore, the blades in a downwind wind turbine may produce
higher impulsive or thumping noise.

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.
Though a restricted definition of micro wind turbines is not available, it is accepted that a
turbine with the rated power less than several kilowatts can be categorized as micro wind
turbine. Micro wind turbines are especially suitable in locations where the electrical grid is
unavailable. They can be used on a per-structure basis, such as street lighting, water pumping,
and residents at remote areas, particularly in developing countries. Because micro wind
turbines need relatively low cut-in speeds at start-up and operate in moderate wind speeds, they
can be extensively installed in most areas around the world for fully utilizing wind resources
and greatly enhancing wind power generation availability.
Small wind turbines 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.
Distributed small wind turbines can increase electricity supply in the regions while delaying or
avoiding the need to increase the capacity of transmission lines.
The most common wind turbines have medium sizes 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.

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Megawatt wind turbines up to 10 MW may be classified as large wind turbines. In recent years,
multi-megawatt wind turbines have become the mainstream of the international wind power
market. 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.

Direct drive and geared drive wind turbines:

According to the drive train condition in a wind generator system, wind turbines can be
classified as either direct drive or geared drive groups.
To increase the generator rotor rotating speed to gain a higher power output, a regular geared
drive wind turbine typically uses a multi-stage gearbox to take the rotational speed from the
low-speed shaft of the blade rotor and transform it into a fast rotation on the high-speed shaft
of the generator rotor. The advantages of geared generator systems include lower cost and
smaller size and weight. However, utilization of a gearbox can significantly lower wind turbine
reliability and increase turbine noise level and mechanical losses.
By eliminating the multi-stage gearbox from a generator system, the generator shaft is directly
connected to the blade rotor. Therefore, the direct-drive concept is more superior in terms of
energy efficiency, reliability, and design simplicity.

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. One of the obvious
advantages for on-grid wind turbine systems is that there is no energy storage problem.
As the contrast, most of small wind turbines are off-grid for residential homes, farms,
telecommunications, and other applications. However, as an intermittent power source, wind
power produced from off-grid wind turbines may change dramatically over a short period of
time with little warning. Consequently, off-grid wind turbines are usually used in connection
with batteries, diesel generators, and photovoltaic systems for improving the stability of wind
power supply.

Onshore and offshore wind turbines:

Onshore wind turbines have a long history on its development. There are a number of
advantages of onshore turbines, 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.

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Offshore wind turbines have developed faster than onshore since the 1990s due to the excellent
offshore wind resource, in terms of wind power intensity and continuity. A wind turbine
installed offshore can make higher power output and operate more hours each year compared
with the same turbine installed onshore. In addition, environmental restrictions are more lax at
offshore sites than at onshore sites. For instance, turbine noise is no long an issue for offshore
wind turbines.

Construction and Working of a Typical Wind Turbine

Wind turbines generate electrical power in the same way as all other generation technologies.
The only difference is in the source of the mechanical power supplied to the electrical generator
i.e. wind, rather than a diesel engine or steam turbine, provides the energy.

Blades capture energy in the wind and turn the turbines. Control mechanisms point the blades
into the wind (yaw control) and, on large wind turbines, adjust the pitch of the blades (blade
angle) as wind speeds change. Typically, a gearbox connects the shaft from the blades (rotor)
to the electrical generator.

Figure 3.6: Components of HAWT

The electrical generators used on wind turbines may either be induction generators or
synchronous generators. The electrical power from the generator is typical 60 Hz, AC power
with 600V output for large wind turbines. A transformer may be required to increase or

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decrease the voltage so it is compatible with the end use, distribution or transmission voltage,
depending on the type of interconnection.

Small wind turbines produce a variety of voltages and some produce DC power. Small wind
turbines generally require an inverter to match the power output with the load and/or
interconnection frequency and voltage.

Rotor: The portion of the wind turbine that collects energy from the wind is called the rotor.
The rotor usually consists of two or more wooden, fiberglass or metal blades which rotate about
an axis at a rate determined by the wind speed and the shape of the blades. The blades are
attached to the hub, which in turn is attached to the main shaft.

Generator: It converts the turning motion of wind turbine blades into electricity. Inside this
component, coils of wire are rotated in a magnetic field to produce electricity. Different
generator designs produce either alternating current (AC) or direct current (DC), and they are
available in a large range of output power ratings. The generator's rating, or size, is dependent
on the length of the wind turbines blades because more energy is captured by longer blades. It
is important to select the right type of generator to match intended use. Most home and office
appliances operate on 240 volt, 50 cycles AC. Some appliances can operate on either AC or
DC, such as light bulbs and resistance heaters, and many others can be adapted to run on DC.
Storage systems using batteries store DC and usually are configured at voltages of between 12
volts and 120 volts. Generators that produce AC are generally equipped with features to
produce the correct voltage of 240 V and constant frequency 50 cycles of electricity, even when
the wind speed is fluctuating. DC generators are normally used in battery charging applications
and for operating DC appliances and machinery. They also can be used to produce AC
electricity with the use of an inverter, which converts DC to AC.

Transmission: The number of revolutions per minute (rpm) of a wind turbine rotor can range
between 40 rpm and 400 rpm, depending on the model and the wind speed. Generators typically
require rpm of 1200 to 1800. As a result, most wind turbines require a gear-box transmission
to increase the rotation of the generator to the speeds necessary for efficient electricity
production. Some DC-type wind turbines do not use transmissions. Instead, they have a direct
link between the rotor and generator. These are known as direct drive systems. Without a
transmission, wind turbine complexity and maintenance requirements are reduced. But a much
larger generator is required to deliver the same power output as the AC-type wind turbines.

Tower: The tower on which a wind turbine is mounted is not just a support structure. It also
raises the wind turbine so that its blades safely clear the ground and so it can reach the stronger

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winds at higher elevations. Maximum tower height is optional in most cases, except where
zoning restrictions apply. The decision of what height tower to use will be based on the cost of
taller towers versus the value of the increase in energy production resulting from their use.
Studies have shown that the added cost of increasing tower height is often justified by the added
power generated from the stronger winds. Larger wind turbines are usually mounted on towers
ranging from 40 to 70 meters tall.

Towers for small wind systems are generally "guyed" designs. This means that there are guy
wires anchored to the ground on three or four sides of the tower to hold it vertical. These towers
cost less than freestanding towers, but require more land area to anchor the guy wires. Some of
these guyed towers are erected by tilting them up. This operation can be quickly accomplished
using only a winch, with the turbine already mounted to the tower top. This simplifies not only
installation, but maintenance as well. Towers can be constructed of a simple tube, a wooden
pole or a lattice of tubes, rods, and angle iron. Large wind turbines may be mounted on lattice
towers, tube towers or guyed tilt-up towers.

Blades: Blade designs operate on either the principle of drag or lift.

Figure 3.7: Lift & Drag on an airfoil

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Drag Design: For the drag design, the wind literally pushes the blades out of the way. Drag
powered wind turbines are characterized by slower rotational speeds and high torque
capabilities.
Lift Design: The lift blade design employs the same principle that enables airplanes, kites and
birds to fly. The blade is essentially an airfoil, or wing. When air flows past the blade, a wind
speed and pressure differential is created between the upper and lower blade surfaces. The
pressure at the lower surface is greater and thus acts to "lift" the blade. When blades are
attached to a central axis, like a wind turbine rotor, the lift is translated into rotational motion.
Lift-powered wind turbines have much higher rotational speeds than drag types and therefore
well suited for electricity generation. Following figure gives an idea about the drag and lift
principle.

Wind Power Parameters:

Power coefficient: The conversion of wind energy to electrical energy involves primarily two
stages: in the first stage, kinetic energy in wind is converted into mechanical energy to drive
the shaft of a wind generator. The critical converting devices in this stage are wind blades. For
maximizing the capture of wind energy, wind blades need to be carefully designed.
The power coefficient Cp deals with the converting efficiency in the first stage, defined as the
ratio of the actually captured mechanical power by blades to the available power in wind:

Because there are various aerodynamic losses in wind turbine systems, for instance, blade-tip,
blade-root, profile, and wake rotation losses, etc., the real power coefficient Cp is much lower
than its theoretical limit, usually ranging from 30 to 45%.

Total power conversion coefficient and effective power output: In the second stage, mechanical
energy captured by wind blades is further converted into electrical energy via wind generators.
In this stage, the converting efficiency is determined by several parameters
• Gearbox efficiency gear – The power losses in a gearbox can be classified as load-dependent
and no-load power losses. The load-dependent losses consist of gear tooth friction and bearing
losses and no-load losses consist of oil churning, windage, and shaft seal losses. The planetary
gearboxes, which are widely used in wind turbines, have higher power transmission
efficiencies over traditional gearboxes.
• Generator efficiency gen – It is related to all electrical and mechanical losses in a wind
generator, such as copper, iron, load, windage, friction, and other miscellaneous losses.

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• Electric efficiency elect – It encompasses all combined electric power losses in the converter,
switches, controls, and cables.
Therefore, the total power conversion efficiency from wind to electricity t is the production
of these parameters, i.e.:

The effective power output from a wind turbine to feed into a grid becomes

Lanchester–Betz limit: The theoretical maximum efficiency of an ideal wind turbo-machine

was derived by Lanchester in 1915 and Betz in 1920. It was revealed that no wind turbo-
machines could convert more than 16/27 (59.26%) of the kinetic energy of wind into
mechanical energy. This is known as Lanchester–Betz limit (or Lanchester–Betz law) today.
As shown in following Figure, 𝑢̅1 and 𝑢̅4 are mean velocities far upstream and downstream
from the wind turbine; 𝑢̅2 and 𝑢̅3 are mean velocities just in front and back of the wind rotating
blades, respectively.

Figure 3.8: Airflow through a wind turbine

By assuming that there is no change in the air velocity right across the wind blades (i.e. 𝑢̅2 =
𝑢̅3) and the pressures far upstream and downstream from the wind turbine are equal to the static
pressure of the undisturbed airflow (i.e. p1 = p4 = p), it can be derived that

and

Thus, the power output of mechanical energy captured by wind turbine blades is

where a is the axial induction factor, defined as

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Substitute Eq. (17) into (12) (where 𝑢̅1 = 𝑢̅), yields

This indicates that the power coefficient is only a function of the axial induction factor a. To
find condition for maximum power coefficient, differentiating Eq. (19) with respect to ‘a’ and
equating with zero, we can easily find that a = 1/3 and the corresponding maximum power
coefficient will be 16/27 i.e. 59.26%.

Power curve: As can be seen from Eq. (14), the effective electrical power output from a wind
turbine Peff is directly proportional to the available wind power Pw and the total effective wind
turbine efficiency t. The power curve of a wind turbine displays the power output (either the
real electrical power output or the percentage of the rated power) of the turbine as a function
of the mean wind speed. Power curves are usually determined from the field measurements.

As shown in following figure, the wind turbine starts to produce usable power at a low wind
speed, defined as the cut-in speed. The power output increases continuously with the increase
of the wind speed until reaching a saturated point, to which the power output reaches its
maximum value, defined as the rated power output. Correspondingly, the speed at this point is
defined as the rated speed. At the rated speed, more increase in the wind speed will not increase
the power output due to the activation of the power control. When the wind speed becomes too
large to potentially damage the wind turbine, the wind turbine needs to shut down immediately
to avoid damaging the wind turbine. This wind speed is defined as the cut-out speed. Thus, the
cut-in and cut-out speeds have defined the operating limits of the wind turbine.

Figure 3.9: Power coefficient ‘Cp’ as a function of axial induction factor ‘a’.

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 Figure 3.10: Typical wind turbine power curve

Tip speed ratio: The tip speed ratio is an extremely important factor in wind turbine design,
which is defined as the ratio of the tangential speed at the blade tip to the actual wind speed,
i.e.:

where l is the length of the blade, r is the radius of the hub, and  is the angular speed of blades.

If the blade angular speed  is too small, most of the wind may pass undisturbed though the
blade swept area making little useful work on the blades. On the contrary, if  is too large, the
fast rotating blades may block the wind flow reducing the power extraction. Therefore, there
exists an optimal angular speed at which the maximum power extraction is achieved. For a
wind turbine with n blades, the optimal angular speed can be approximately determined as

where L is the length of the strongly disturbed air stream upwind and downwind of the rotor.
Substituting Eq. (21) into (20), the optimal tip speed ratio becomes

Empirically, the ratio (l + r)/L is equal to about 2. Thus, for three-blade wind turbines (i.e. n =
3), lopt ≈ 4/3.
If the aerofoil blade is designed with care, the optimal tip speed ratio may be about 25–30%
higher than the calculated optimal values above. Therefore, a wind turbine with three blades
would have an optimal tip speed ratio:

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Numerical: Consider a wind turbine with 5 m diameter rotor. Speed of the rotor at 10 m/s wind
velocity is 130 RPM and its power coefficient at this point is 0.35. Calculate the tip speed ratio
and mechanical power output of the turbine. What will be the torque available at the rotor shaft?
Assume the density of air to be 1.24 kg/m3.

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