Design comparison of wind turbines for low wind speed

  • Dena Hendriana Swiss German University
  • Eka Budiarto Swiss German University
  • Alexander Clements Swiss German University
  • Arko Djajadi Swiss German University
Keywords: CFD, OpenFOAM, VAWT

Abstract

Wind energy is one of the potential renewable energy, but the applications have to be
adjusted to the available wind characteristic in the area. In Indonesia, the wind speed is in
average not very high, only around 4 m/s. Therefore the wind turbine design have to be adjusted
for usage in Indonesia. In this research, two wind turbine designs are compared. One design is
of the form Horizontal-Axis Wind Turbine (HAWT) and the other is of the form Vertical-Axis
Wind Turbine (VAWT). Both designs are optimized for wind speed of 4 m/s. The comparisons
are done using computer simulation software OpenFOAM. The result shows VAWT design can
produce similar power with smaller turbine dimension than the HAWT design.

Published
2019-02-13