Assessment of micro-wind turbines performance in the urban environments: an aided methodology through geographical information systems

Abstract

Among renewable energy sources, the electrical generation from micro-wind turbines has not yet disclosed its huge potential especially in urban settings. Increasing the spread of micro-wind turbines not only promotes the decentralized generation of energy, but also helps tackle fuel poverty and to achieve reductions in the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs). This work proposes an innovative methodology to exploit wind flow fields, calculated by means of computational fluid dynamic (CFD) codes in urban environments, within the geographical information system (GIS) platform. In this way, the platform of users is amplified, even non-specialist users, that can utilize wind data to evaluate the potential production of electricity using micro-wind turbines. A pilot study was conducted for assessing the applicability of the approach in a Sicilian city. The results of this case study show the energy yield produced from a building-mounted wind turbine (BUWT). The developed methodology permits to enrich the information usually stored in the GIS platform allowing to supply useful information about suitable sites where micro-wind energy plants can be installed and to assess the production of renewable energy in the urban settings.