Abstract
Among renewable sources of energy, wind is the most widely used resource due to its commercial acceptance, low cost and ease of operation and maintenance, relatively much less time for its realization from concept till operation, creation of new jobs, and least adverse effect on the environment. The fast technological development in the wind industry and availability of multi megawatt sized horizontal axis wind turbines has further led the promotion of wind power utilization globally. It is a well-known fact that the wind speed increases with height and hence the energy output. However, one cannot go above a certain height due to structural and other issues. Hence other attempts need to be made to increase the efficiency of the wind turbines, maintaining the hub heights to acceptable and controllable limits. The efficiency of the wind turbines or the energy output can be increased by reducing the cut-in-speed and/or the rated-speed by modifying and redesigning the blades. The problem is tackled by identifying the optimization parameters such as annual energy yield, power coefficient, energy cost, blade mass, and blade design constraints such as physical, geometric, and aerodynamic. The present paper provides an overview of the commonly used models, techniques, tools and experimental approaches applied to increase the efficiency of the wind turbines. In the present review work, particular emphasis is made on approaches used to design wind turbine blades both experimental and numerical, methodologies used to study the performance of wind turbines both experimentally and analytically, active and passive techniques used to enhance the power output from wind turbines, reduction in cut-in-speed for improved wind turbine performance, and lastly the research and development work related to new and efficient materials for the wind turbines.
Highlights
The growing awareness of the adverse effects of the changing climatic conditions on global, regional, and local scales has led the people from all walks of life to utilize clean and renewable sources of energy to combat the increasing environmental pollution
The results showed that for a low wind speed range of 2 to 6 m/s, the wind energy utilization efficiency of the turbine increased by 70% and the power output was numerically investigated and the results showed that the fatigue damage to the structure was considerably reduced without any effects on ultimate loads and power production
A computational model based on the given wind speed has been developed, rendering a custom-shaped blade for the given conditions corresponding to an optimum performance, maximum annual energy production, net present value and internal rate of return depending on objective function
Summary
The growing awareness of the adverse effects of the changing climatic conditions on global, regional, and local scales has led the people from all walks of life to utilize clean and renewable sources of energy to combat the increasing environmental pollution. The renewable sources of energy which are being promoted these days include the wind, solar photovoltaic, solar thermal, geothermal, big and small hydro, biomass, municipal waste, to name some Among these energy sources, wind power has been realized as the major source of energy globally due to fast technological development and availability of all sizes of wind turbines covering almost all types of applications starting from home to grid connected large utilities. Germany, India, and Brazil took third, fourth, and capacity additions stood at second place. India took the fourth place whereas new wind power new wind power capacity addition is concerned in the year capacity addition is concerned in the year 2016.
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