Vertical Axis Wind Turbines – History Technology and Applications

In these Master Thesis a review of different type of vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT) and an preliminary investigation of a new kind of VAWT are presented. After an introduction about the historical background of wind power, the report deals with a more accurate analysis of the main type of VAWT, showing their characteristics and their operations. The aerodynamics of the wind turbines and a review of different type on generators that can be used to connect the wind mill to the electricity grid are reported as well. Several statistics are also presented, in order to explain how the importance of the wind energy has grown up during the last decades and also to show that this development of the market of wind power creates new opportunity also for VAWT, that are less used than the horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT).