Achieving high energy extraction with multiple vertical axis wind turbines

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A newly discovered advantage of vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT) is that their rotors can be placed close together without significant loss of efficiency. Experimental results indicate that turbines separated by a distance of 4 rotor diameters perform as well as isolated turbines. The power extraction of a wind farm composed of multiple VAWT should be significantly higher than the existing wind farms exploiting horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWT). To further demonstrate this concept, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) can be utilized but the current state of CFD needs to be improved to achieve the required accuracy and reasonable computing time to simulate multiple VAWT. An initial analysis by the author has also shown an increase of the power coefficient for three turbines facing the wind direction, nevertheless the parameters that affect the increase in power remain to be determined. The research program described in this proposal will develop an accurate and fast CFD simulation tool to study multiple VAWT interaction. This simulation tool is needed to demonstrate and to quantify the benefit of using multiple VAWT in close proximity. The understanding of the phenomena related to closely packed VAWT can lead to a revolution in the wind energy industry because energy extract from wind farms can be significantly increased. This research program will contribute by training two PhD students and three master students in the field of CFD and wind energy.