Abstract
Urban wind development is gathering energy and passion these years and is good for sustainable cities. This chapter tries to evaluate wind energy potential with study of urban form in a block scale (500 m × 500 m). CFD method is used for wind flow simulation. CFD parameter settings were validated and evaluated with wind tunnel experiment. Simple building forms (1-3 buildings) were tested for exploring the impact of building form on wind potential. Space over roof is proved to be most effective and practical position for developing wind energy in the urban environment. Ideal urban forms were tested for evaluating the impact of one single morphological parameter on wind potential over roof. Real urban forms were then evaluated and compared in order to reveal the impact of different urban form parameter on wind potential. Urban form unit models are then considered to understand the impact of a certain urban form feature on wind potential. Finally, a block model in Beijing is given for urban wind evaluation case study, including wind potential evaluation of every building roof in the model, wind turbine position evaluation, and economical cost analysis.
Highlights
Most wind turbines are installed in the suburbs or seashore
Apart from parameter validation by the tunnel experiment, there are some methods of verification that can be used: (1) Flow consistency analysis is to ensure the stability and credibility of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation results; (2) domain size analysis is to find a decent dimension of simulation domain in order to fully develop the turbulence and at the same time to avoid consuming much time for calculation; (3) grid sensibility analysis to ensure that the mesh size and method will not affect the results; and (4) random error analysis to assess the stability and sense of the findings during the CFD simulation process
Some of the promising types would be used for CFD simulation and comparison, and some would be used to extract single feature for close study through urban form unit model analysis
Summary
The twenty-first century is an era of harmonious development between man and nature. Renewable energy development, as a means to achieve sustainable social development, plays an active and important role in dealing with the pressing problems of climate change, air pollution, urban energy shortage, and so on. The feasibility of urban wind power development can be summarized as follows: (1) Avoiding long-distance grid transmission, power generation can be used on site or stored separately (urban wind power is generally distributed, a small amount of electricity can be effectively stored, but a large number of it is difficult; (2) there are many tall buildings in the city, whose top or side is usually accompanied by strong wind; and (3) small or micro wind power systems have small investment and are suitable for decentralized use by the whole people. Some primary results on urban wind potential evaluation with impact of urban form are published [28]
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