Improvement of Wind Power Generation Technique

Mohamed Kamal Mahmoud Cairo University Phone: 012-726-629-92 E-mail: eng.mohamedkamal@hotmail.com

Abstract
All the world countries nowadays tends to find alternative sources of energy rather than the conventional types which are liberated from burning fossil fuels in power plants to generate electricity. Looking for cleaner and environmental friendly sources of energy we are talking about Renewable Energy Sources and specifically the Wind Energy. Renewable energy resources are enough to cover the worlds needs but the problem is intermittency, lack of dependability, and usually of low energy density. Wind power turbines are clean, renewable alternatives for power generation in many countries; Denmark has the highest level per capita, and wind power supplies about 20% of Danish electricity needs. Most world wind capacity is located at onshore sites, but offshore wind farms are planned or built in countries like Denmark, Ireland, Sweden, Germany, and the United Kingdom. An enormous amount of power resides in wind (~ 1-2 % of the incident solar power is converted to wind). However wind is a diffuse source of energy and it is only possible to harness a very small fraction of this amount.

Keywords: renewable energy, wind

Energy, wind turbines, blade development.

Nomenclature:
P m A U D T Pe Wind Power, W Mass flow rate, Kg/s Upwind density, Kg/m3 Rotor blade area, m2 Upwind velocity, m/s Rotor blade diameter, m Thrust force, N Extracted power, W

Introduction
Wind maps, meteorological data from met towers, models, and other criteria are used for selection of the wind farm locations, other considerations for the wind farm developer are the type of terrain (complex to plains); wind shear, wind direction, spacing of the wind turbines, which then depends on predominant wind direction and availability and cost of the land and other items, such as roads, turbine and substation. Terrain can be classified as complex, mesas, rolling and plains. Passes may be primarily one type or a mixture.

In complex terrain, such as mountains and ridges, micro-sitting os very important, whereas in the flat plains, the primary consideration is spacing between turbines in a row and spacing between rows. On mesas, the highest wind speed is on the edge of the mesa facing the predominant wind direction, so there may be only one row of turbines. In rolling terrain such as hills, the wind turbines will be placed on the highest elevations. In general, spacing is given in terms of the diameter D of the wind turbine, so larger turbines will be farther apart; this is called Micro-sitting. The viability of wind power in a given site depends on having sufficient wind speed available at the height at which you intend to install the turbine. It also depends on the frequency of different speeds at which can either be empirically measured or modeled using statistical function. Long term data gathering at any site over multiyear period provides sufficient data for site assessment. The data should provide the average and variance wind speed which will anly vary within ~ + 10 % from year to year in most locations. Using measured data provides a solid basis for calculating the available energy at the proposed site. However, sometimes we only have an average velocity with no information on the hourly distribution wind for the year. There are two types of statistical modeling : Rayleigh Distribytion and Weibull Distribution.

power generation as an alternative to conventional power plants was the green house effect that caused the phenomena of global warming and also the idea of that we already reached the world oil generation peak from several years ago. Figure (1) illustrates the main sources of green house gases ( mainly Carbon Dioxide, Methane And Nitrous Oxide) liberation and the percentages of each.

Fig. 1: Green house gases percentages. The most effective and dangerous gas of the green house gases is the CO2, which is the main gas liberated from any power station due to fuel combustion . So it must be an important factor to be taken into consideration while comparing between different power staions. Figure (2) represents the different amount of CO2/kwh emissions liberated from different power sources and its obviously clear that the wind energy emits a negligable amount of CO2 compared to other several power sources, and so its considered one of the most important alternative power generation source.

Wind Energy
The main motive that derived us towards using The Renewable Energy sources in

Most of worldwide countries took the above illustrated scientifically facts into consideration And started to be oriented toward improving their power generation by depending on wind energy as a renewable source and that is translated in Figure that shows the amount of total and added capacity in wind power in different countries in June 2010.

Fig. 2: CO2 emission quantity. And with respect to area requirements, Figure (3) compares between different power sources at 100 MW operating at Full Capacity. The main factor that controls the area requirements is the wind farm spacing which will be discussed later.

Fig. 3: Area requirements Also, Electrical Efficiency wise; wind comes in the middle place in between several power sources and in the first place with respect to Renewable Energy Sources (Solar Thermal, Solar-PV and Geothermal.)

Fig. 5: Added capacity in June 2010. Figure (6) illustrates the share of some countries in wind energy in 2010 which also proves that this is a new trend of the world and plan for the future power generation technology which is related to using Renewable Energy as an alternative power source for conventional power generation systems.

Fig. 4: Electrical efficiency % Fig. 6: Wind energy share in June 2010.

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Types of wind turbines

Wind turbines consist of two types: Horizontal Axis (Upwind or Downwind) and Vertical Axis. Both of them have: main rotor shaft hub, rotor shaft, electrical generator, nacelle enclosing and a gear box. The main advantages of horizontal type wind turbine over the vertical type are that these have high tip speeds of over 320 km/h (200 mph), high efficiency, and low torque ripple, which contribute to good reliability.

Fig. 8: Vertical axis wind turbine. The main difference between them depends on the application.

Fig. 7: Horizontal axis wind turbine. The main advantages of the Vertical arrangement are that the turbine does not need to be pointed into the wind to be effective. This is an advantage on sites where the wind direction is highly variable The key disadvantages include the low rotational speed with the consequential higher torque and hence higher cost of the drive train, the 360 degree rotation of the aerofoil within the wind flow during each cycle and hence the highly dynamic loading on the blade, the pulsating torque generated by some rotor designs on the drive train, and the difficulty of modeling the wind flow accurately and hence the challenges of analyzing and designing the rotor prior to fabricating a prototype Fig. 9: Wind turbine components.

Blade Development
Wind power is proportional to u3, i.e. more power at higher wind speeds and fluctuations in wind speed cause significant variation is power output.

Available wind energy to optimize between cost, efficiency and power output of turbine.

Fig. 11: Power speed curve. Therefore, its highly recommended to operate in the turbine in the region of flat rating where the speed is maximum and safe also we can get steady maximum power output.

Fig. 10: Rotor blade upwind schematic

As with the increase of wind speed the power extracted increases and also severe strain on the grid as well as the turbine hardware increases causing an upper limit (cutout speed) at which we get rated power output from the turbine and above it we get high fluctuations in power output and high stresses on turbine rotor and fatigue failure. Its also clear that the wind power is directly proportional with the blade area (diameter) which is mainly determined according to the

Fig. 12: Blade evolution till 2015

Wind Site Typical Data

The viability of wind power in a given site depends on having sufficient wind speed available at the height at which you intend to install the turbine. It also depends on the frequency of different speeds at which can either be empirically measured or modeled using statistical function. Long term data gathering at any site over e multiyear period provides sufficient data for site assessment. The data should provide the average and variance wind speed which will anly vary within ~ + 10 % from year to year in most locations.

Empirical Measurment
Using the following formulas we can estimate the average versus wind energy speeds for a given empirically measured site wind speeds at certain height H of tower and so estimate the possible generation of power in kwh/m2 of the rotor diameter D.

Fig. 13: Typical site data measured empirically

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Statistical Modeling
The other technique used consists of two different methods: The Rayleigh Distribution Method and The Weibull Distribution Method. Both aims to estimate the likehood of the presence of the available range of wind speeds during a period of time ( usually a year at least ) at a given wind tower height H each hour in order to evaluate the site and decide wether its economic to establish the wind farm or not.

Weibull Distribution Method

(6)

Where F (v) is the probability density, V is the velocity difference (m/s), V is the wind speed at bin class (m/s),

Rayleigh Distribution Method

(5)

Where F (v) is the probability density, V is the velocity difference (m/s), Va is the average wind speed, V is the wind speed at bin class (m/s).

Fig. 14: Rayleigh distribution method curve.

Wind Farm Spacing

The most important factor that controls the area requirements for establishing a wind power station is the Wind Farm Spacing. Mainly it consists of two different spacing types: Crosswind Spacing and Downwind Spacing, both are functions in turbine rotor diameter D. The wind farm spacing is very important in optimization of extracting power from wind and minimizing the possibilities of any power loss. Downwind spacing ~ 8D and Crosswind spacing ~ 5D The main idea is to give time and space to wind speed to return to its upcoming value after passing by each successive turbine rotor.

Fig. 14: Turbulence schematic. Another important factor is the Wind Shear; wind shear is the change of wind speed or direction over some distance. The change in wind speed with height is an important factor in estimating the wind turbine energy production, as by controlling the height of the wind turbine tower with respect to the site metallurgical data we can have an estimate of upwind speed and so wind power.

Fig. 13: Wind farm spacing As you cannot afford any high energy losing the upcoming wind, Figure illustrates how an obstacle of height H in the upwind direction can affect the wind flow speed and power due to wake effect.

Fig. 15: Speed degradation.

Wind speed classification

Wind speed can be classified as shown in figure

References

Fig. 16: Speed classification

Summary and Conclusion

The Renewable Energy sources is the future of power generation systems and all the world tends to introduce this technology step by step as an alternative to conventional power stations and thats all due to the rapid increase in the effects of the Global Warming phenomena and the reduction in the fossil fuel reserves. The Empirically measured data gives the most accurate results with comparison to the statistical modeling techniques, especially weibull method that represents higher deviation than Rayleigh method from empirically measured values. The Wind Energy is clean, available and very useful source of energy that just needs to be utilized properly but its key disadvantage is that we cant rely on it as a standalone source of electricity due to intermittency and lack of dependability.

Acknowledgement
The author expresses his thanks to Dr.Aya Diab for her helpful suggestions and insightful discussions and Dr.Waleed A. Abdelmaksoud for his help in teaching and presenting such work.