Performance Evaluation of a Vertical Axis Wind Turbine Using Real-Time Measuring Wind Data

Recently, small vertical axis wind turbine has been in the limelight as an essential component of hybrid renewable energy system, based on many advantages, such as low noise and cut-in wind speed, cost and site flexibility, etc. Turbine performance is analyzed by introducing the effect of different time averaging steps using real-time measuring wind data. All measured data through wind master is stored in the computer every second using a data acquisition system. The test turbine is installed at the island, which is located near Seoul, South Korea. Vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) having the rated power of 1.5 kW is installed. The performance of the VAWT is compared and analyzed using 10-, 20-, and 30-min averaged data. Numerical simulation has also been performed to compare the turbine performance with experimental results. From the comparisons between experimental and numerical simulation, it is found that performance of the tested wind turbine is slightly different according to the different time-averaged data. Turbine performance analyzed by using 10-min time-averaged data, which has relatively lower standard deviation, has a good agreement to the result of numerical simulation.