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

该项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是通过降低成本，使当地风能发电的屋顶和其他方法在市场上得到广泛采用。这是通过开发旨在降低风力涡轮机传动系统和相关电力电子产品成本的技术来实现的，这些高成本项目往往在新的风力涡轮机设计中没有创新。令人望而却步的高成本是目前广泛采用分布式风力涡轮机的最大障碍，而电力电子产品的成本可能高达这些成本的50%。大幅降低成本有可能增加全球分布式风电的采用率。在该项目中开发的创新动力总成技术是专门为与屋顶边缘的风捕获专有技术相结合而设计的。与这项技术相结合，成本估算与屋顶太阳能具有竞争力，使风能成为屋顶太阳能安装的常见补充。这项技术的成功部署将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，从而为社会做出贡献。重要的制造业努力可能仍将留在美国，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架构来降低小型风力涡轮机动力传动系的成本。在这种架构中，通过将风力涡轮机转子输出的能量暂时存储在飞轮中，然后将其传递给发电机，从而降低了成本。这使得动力系统可以包括一个发电机和逆变器，这些发电机和逆变器的大小针对平均功率输出而不是峰值功率输出，能够消除分流负载，并允许使用更快的旋转，从而降低发电机成本。第一阶段项目旨在证明开发满足整个传动系(包括效率和可靠性)需求的低成本飞轮、保持高效率的动力总成控制系统以及保持市场牵引所需的降低成本预测的动力总成系统配置的可行性。研究工作包括开发试验台规模的传动系以测试飞轮的控制，动力总成模拟以测试替代发电机和变流器拓扑，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NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.