Vertical turbines could be the future for wind farms
The now-familiar sight of traditional propeller wind turbines could be replaced in the future with wind farms containing more compact and efficient vertical turbines.
New research from Oxford Brookes University has found that the vertical turbine design is far more efficient than traditional turbines in large scale wind farms, and when set in pairs the vertical turbines increase each other’s performance by up to 15%.
A research team from the School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics (ECM) at Oxford Brookes led by Professor Iakovos Tzanakis conducted an in-depth study using more than 11,500 hours of computer simulation to show that wind farms can perform more efficiently by substituting the traditional propeller type Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWTs), for compact Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWTs).
April 30, 2021, by Adrijana Buljan
New research from Oxford Brookes University has found that Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWTs) are far more efficient in large scale (offshore) wind farms than the traditional Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWTs).
Spinning around an axis vertical to the ground, VAWTs exhibit the opposite behaviour of the traditional horizontal propeller design and increase each other’s performance when arranged in grid formations. When set in pairs, the vertical turbines increase each other’s performance by up to 15 per cent, according to the study.
Source: Oxford Brookes University
A research team from the School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics (ECM) at Oxford Brookes led by Professor Iakovos Tzanakis conducted an in-depth study using more than 11,500 hours of computer simulation to show that wind farms can perform more efficiently by substituting the traditional HAWT propeller type for compact VAW
29th April 2021 10:55 am 29th April 2021 10:55 am
Windfarms with turbines that rotate on an upright axis could transform the wind sector, a new study has found.
Image: Oxford Brookes University
Based on over 11,500 hours of computer simulation, the research from Oxford Brookes University found that Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWTs) boost each other’s performance when clustered together, with grouped pairs seeing a 15 per cent rise in output. This is in contrast to the more traditional Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWTs), which produce turbulence that affects the performance of other HAWTs downwind.
“Modern wind farms are one of the most efficient ways to generate green energy, however, they have one major flaw: as the wind approaches the front row of turbines, turbulence will be generated downstream,” said lead author of the study, Joachim Toftegaard Hansen, and engineering graduate at Oxford Brookes.
Read Time:
The now-familiar sight of traditional propeller wind turbines could be replaced in the future with wind farms containing more compact and efficient vertical turbines. New research from Oxford Brookes University has found that the vertical turbine design is far more efficient than traditional turbines in large scale wind farms, and when set in pairs the vertical turbines increase each other s performance by up to 15%.
A research team from the School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics (ECM) at Oxford Brookes led by Professor Iakovos Tzanakis conducted an in-depth study using more than 11,500 hours of computer simulation to show that wind farms can perform more efficiently by substituting the traditional propeller type Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWTs), for compact Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWTs).