Author(s)

YONGJIAN GU, EHSAN KAMEL, ILYA TSITRON, MAX AGINSKIY

Abstract

Wind is a green, renewable, and sustainable energy resource. A wind turbine is a device to convert wind energy to electrical energy. There are two kinds of wind turbines: horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWT) and vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT). Compared to the HAWT, the VAWT does not have a tall tower and giant turbine blades. Consequently, the VAWT does not need a large open area as the HAWT does. The VAWT application is attractive in residential and metropolitan areas. This paper presents the design and performance study of a unique modular VAWT, green power tower (GPT). This unique modular VAWT has a cylindrical shape which is able to generate electricity from 360° wind flow. Turbine blades and shaft of the GPT are entirely covered in a round enclosure. No moving components are exposed to outside. The operation of the GPT is quiet, safe, and environment-friendly. In the paper, the working principle of the GPT is illustrated. In operation, wind stream alternates the flow direction in the enclosure by the redirecting bottom wall and blows up toward the turbine blades vertically. In addition, the modular and packable characteristics of the GPT make its installation convenient to meet the required power generation capacity by using multiple levels. In the paper, the study of the operation performance of the GPT conducted by the scale prototypes is presented. The performance parameters with various wind speeds, such as tip speed ratio (TSR), power coefficient (C_p)), and power generation are shown and compared. The comparison of the GPT to the HAWT in equivalent small-scale prototypes was conducted as well. The results showed the GPT is competitive to the HAWT in performance. The manufacturing and installation of the GPT are economically justified.

Keywords

wind energy, wind turbine, vertical axial wind turbine (VAWT), green power tower (GPT)