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，使屋顶和其他当地风能发电方法得到广泛的市场采用。这是通过开发设计用于降低风力涡轮机传动系和相关电力电子设备的成本的技术来实现的，在新的风力涡轮机设计中，高成本项目通常没有创新。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占这些成本的50%。显著的成本降低有可能增加全球分布式风力发电的采用。该项目中开发的创新动力传动技术是专门设计的，与屋顶边缘风力捕获的专有技术相结合。当与这项技术相结合时，成本估计与屋顶太阳能相比具有竞争力，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、提高能源弹性以及创造与制造和部署相关的新就业机会来为社会做出贡献。重要的制造业可能会留在美国，创造当地就业机会和经济增长。该小型企业技术转让（STTR）第一阶段项目建议使用一种新型传动系架构来降低小型风力涡轮机传动系成本。在这种结构中，通过在将来自风力涡轮机转子的能量传递到发电机之前将其暂时存储在飞轮中来降低成本。这允许动力传动系包括发电机和逆变器，其尺寸被设定为用于平均而不是峰值功率输出，使得能够去除分流负载，并且允许使用更快的旋转，并且因此使用更低成本的发电机。第一阶段项目旨在证明开发满足整体传动系统需求（包括效率和可靠性）的低成本飞轮、保持高效率的动力传动系统控制系统以及保持市场牵引力所需的降低成本预测的动力传动系统配置的可行性。研究工作包括开发一个实验室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拓扑结构，以及对发电机候选者进行基准测试来确定效率和功率密度。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持的。

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.