Energy Management in Smart Cities by Novel Wind Turbine Configurations

Abstract

Energy is an essential element for human activities across the globe, and the wind turbine is a device that produces renewable electrical power for green energy management. Recently, for the establishment of smart green cities, the large-scale horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT) installations have received greater attention. The objective of the present chapter is to provide deep insights on the application and feasibility of novel wind turbine configurations to accomplish energy management in green smart cities. The basic design and construction of such wind turbines are modified to generate power even at low wind speeds (i.e., < 5 m/s), that is attainable adjacent to shallow waters in urban environments. The optimum parameters such as the tower height, number of rotor blades, rotor blade design (aerofoil shape) and control systems are determined through the industry standard Bladed module. The NACA profile is considered to design the untwisted/twisted blades for wind turbines to deliver maximum power output at low wind speeds with hybrid composite epoxy blades. Detailed numerical simulations are provided with fixed and variable pitch blades at different possible wind speeds prevailing in the coastal environments of Europe and India. In France, in the Normandy region alone, the offshore wind power projects with about 500 MW capacity are installed, which satisfies the electricity requirements of about 770,000 people annually. The turbine operation and control will be done by artificial intelligence (AI) based techniques. The power output range varies from 1.5-2 MW, which depends on various geometric and environmental constraints, and it helps to fulfil the domestic power requirement of smart cities in a cost-effective manner to achieve the green energy mission.