Abstract
In recent years, sites with low annual average wind speeds have begun to be considered for the development of new wind farms. The majority of design methods for a wind turbine operating at low wind speed is to increase the blade length or hub height compared to a wind turbine operating in high wind speed sites. The cost of the rotor and the tower is a considerable portion of the overall wind turbine cost. This study investigates a method to trade-off the blade length and hub height during the wind turbine optimization at low wind speeds. A cost and scaling model is implemented to evaluate the cost of energy. The procedure optimizes the blades’ aero-structural performance considering blade length and the hub height simultaneously. The blade element momentum (BEM) code is used to evaluate blade aerodynamic performance and classical laminate theory (CLT) is applied to estimate the stiffness and mass per unit length of each blade section. The particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is applied to determine the optimal wind turbine with the minimum cost of energy (COE). The results show that increasing rotor diameter is less efficient than increasing the hub height for a low wind speed turbine and the COE reduces 16.14% and 17.54% under two design schemes through the optimization.
Highlights
Wind energy is renewable and clean, which can help mitigate global climate change
A wind turbine optimization for low wind speed areas is performed to investigate the relationship between rotor diameter and hub height
The capacity of power generation is related to the aerodynamic performance of the rotor which is calculated by blade element momentum (BEM) theory and the annual average wind speed based on the hub height
Summary
Wind energy is renewable and clean, which can help mitigate global climate change. Wind farms with high quality wind resources are limited. The wind farms with low quality wind resources are far more plentiful than high-quality ones and have some advantages such as being closer to the existing electrical grid. The design and development of wind turbines in low wind speed areas faces several technical and financial challenges related to maximizing energy conversion efficiency and minimizing cost of energy (COE). The classical wind turbine literature mainly deals with acquiring ideal blade geometry or structural design and improving structural properties of the tower. The research objective mainly aims to maximize annual energy production (AEP), minimize COE, minimize blades mass, or a combination of these
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
