Small scale wind energy harvesting with maximum power tracking

Azevedo Joaquim; Mendonça Fábio; Azevedo Joaquim; Mendonça Fábio

doi:10.3934/energy.2015.3.297

AIMS Energy

2015, Volume 2, Issue 3: 297-315. doi: 10.3934/energy.2015.3.297

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Research article Special Issues

Small scale wind energy harvesting with maximum power tracking

Azevedo Joaquim ^,,
Mendonça Fábio

Centre for Exact Science and Engineering, University of Madeira, Funchal, Portugal

Received: 27 May 2015 Accepted: 22 July 2015 Published: 31 July 2015

It is well-known that energy harvesting from wind can be used to power remote monitoring systems. There are several studies that use wind energy in small-scale systems, mainly with wind turbine vertical axis. However, there are very few studies with actual implementations of small wind turbines. This paper compares the performance of horizontal and vertical axis wind turbines for energy harvesting on wireless sensor network applications. The problem with the use of wind energy is that most of the time the wind speed is very low, especially at urban areas. Therefore, this work includes a study on the wind speed distribution in an urban environment and proposes a controller to maximize the energy transfer to the storage systems. The generated power is evaluated by simulation and experimentally for different load and wind conditions. The results demonstrate the increase in efficiency of wind generators that use maximum power transfer tracking, even at low wind speeds.
- energy harvesting,
- wind energy,
- horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT),
- vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT),
- maximum power point tracking,
- simulation,
- experimental setup
Citation: Azevedo Joaquim, Mendonça Fábio. Small scale wind energy harvesting with maximum power tracking[J]. AIMS Energy, 2015, 2(3): 297-315. doi: 10.3934/energy.2015.3.297

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Abstract

It is well-known that energy harvesting from wind can be used to power remote monitoring systems. There are several studies that use wind energy in small-scale systems, mainly with wind turbine vertical axis. However, there are very few studies with actual implementations of small wind turbines. This paper compares the performance of horizontal and vertical axis wind turbines for energy harvesting on wireless sensor network applications. The problem with the use of wind energy is that most of the time the wind speed is very low, especially at urban areas. Therefore, this work includes a study on the wind speed distribution in an urban environment and proposes a controller to maximize the energy transfer to the storage systems. The generated power is evaluated by simulation and experimentally for different load and wind conditions. The results demonstrate the increase in efficiency of wind generators that use maximum power transfer tracking, even at low wind speeds.

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