STTR Phase I: Integrated Solution for Low Cost Distributed Wind Energy Generation

该项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是通过降低成本，使市场广泛采用屋顶和其他本地风力发电方法。这是通过旨在降低风力涡轮机传动系统和相关电力电子设备成本的技术开发实现的，这些高成本项目通常在新的风力涡轮机设计中没有创新。过高的成本是目前广泛采用分布式风力涡轮机的最大障碍，而电力电子设备可能高达这些成本的50%。成本的显著降低有可能增加全球分布式风力发电的采用。在这个项目中开发的创新动力系统技术是专门设计的，可以与屋顶边缘的风力捕获专有技术相结合。当与这种技术相结合时，成本估计与屋顶太阳能具有竞争力，使风能成为屋顶太阳能装置的常见补充。这项技术的成功部署将通过减少能源生产的碳足迹，提高能源弹性，并创造与制造和部署相关的新就业机会，为社会做出贡献。重要的制造业努力可能会留在美国，为当地创造就业机会和经济增长。这个小型企业技术转移（STTR）第一阶段项目建议使用一种新颖的传动系统架构来降低小型风力涡轮机动力系统的成本。在这种结构中，通过将风力涡轮机转子产生的能量暂时储存在飞轮中，然后将其传递给发电机，从而降低了成本。这允许动力系统包括发电机和逆变器，它们的大小是平均功率输出而不是峰值功率输出，可以消除导流负载，并允许使用更快的旋转，因此成本更低的发电机。第一阶段的项目旨在证明开发一种低成本飞轮的可行性，该飞轮满足整个传动系统的需求（包括效率和可靠性），动力总成控制系统保持高效率，动力总成系统配置保持市场牵引力所需的低成本预测。研究工作包括开发一个实验规模的传动系统来测试飞轮的控制，动力系统模拟来测试替代发电机和转换器的拓扑结构，以及对候选发电机进行基准测试以确定效率和功率密度。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is to enable broad market adoption of rooftop and other methods for local wind energy generation through reduction in costs. This is achieved through development of technology designed to lower the cost of wind turbine drive trains and associated power electronics, high cost items which are often left without innovation in new wind turbine designs. Prohibitively high costs are currently the biggest barrier to widespread adoption of distributed wind turbines, and power electronics can be as much as 50% of these costs. Significant cost reduction has the potential to increase worldwide distributed wind power adoption. The innovative power train technology developed in this project is specifically designed to couple with a proprietary technology for wind capture at rooftop edges. When combined with this technology, costs estimates are competitive with rooftop solar energy, enabling wind energy to become a common addition to rooftop solar installations. Successful deployment of this technology will contribute to society by decreasing the carbon footprint of energy production, increasing energy resiliency, and creating new jobs associated with manufacturing and deployment. Significant manufacturing efforts are likely to remain in the US, creating local job opportunities and economic growth. This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project proposes to use a novel drive train architecture to reduce small wind turbine power train costs. In this architecture, costs are lowered by temporarily storing the energy coming out of the wind turbine rotor in a flywheel before passing it on to the generator. This allows for the power train to include a generator and inverter that are sized for average rather than peak power outputs, enables removal of diversion load, and allows for the use of a faster spinning, and therefore lower cost generator. The Phase I project seeks to prove the feasibility of developing a low-cost flywheel which meets the needs of the overall drive train (including efficiency and reliability), a powertrain control system which maintains high efficiency, and a powertrain system configuration which maintains the reduced cost projections required for market traction. Research efforts include development of a bench-scale drive train to test the controls of the flywheel, powertrain simulation to test alternative generator and converter topologies, and benchmarking of generator candidates to determine efficiency and power density.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.