Small-Scale Wind Power: Design, Analysis, and Environmental Impacts

In today's world, clean and robust energy sources are beingsought to provide power to residences, commercial operations,and manufacturing enterprises. Among the most appealingenergy sources is wind power—with its high reliability andlow environmental impact. Wind power's rapid penetrationinto markets throughout the world has taken many forms, andthis book discusses the types of wind power, as well as the appropriate decisions that need to be made regarding windpower design, testing, installation, and analysis. Inside, the authors detail the design of various small-windsystems including horizontal-axis wind turbines (HAWTs) and vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWTs). The design of wind turbinestakes advantage of many avenues of investigation, all of whichare included in the book. Analytical methods that have beendeveloped over the past few decades are major methods usedfor design. Alternatively, experimentation (typically using scaledmodels in wind tunnels) and numerical simulation (using moderncomputational fluid dynamic software) are also used and will be dealt with in depth. In addition to the analysis of wind turbine performance, it isimportant for users to assess the economic benefits of using windpower. An entire chapter of this book is devoted to this topic,as well as case studies that help elucidate the issues that you'll need to consider, from siting and mechanical complications, to performance and maintenance.