Renewable Energy 36 (2011) 3050e3053

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Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Power coefficient measurement on a 12 kW straight bladed vertical axis wind

turbine
J. Kjellin*, F. Bülow, S. Eriksson, P. Deglaire, M. Leijon, H. Bernhoff
Swedish Centre for Renewable Electric Energy Conversion, Division of Electricity, Uppsala University, Box 534, 751 21 Uppsala, Sweden

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A 12 kW vertical axis H-rotor type wind turbine has been designed and constructed at Uppsala
Received 15 February 2010 University. A measurement campaign has been performed to collect data to calculate the power coef-
Accepted 23 March 2011 ficient using the method of bins. The measurement was performed at different constant rotational
Available online 21 April 2011
speeds on the turbine during varying wind speeds to observe the power coefficients dependence on tip
speed ratio. The power coefficient peaked at 0.29 for a tip speed ratio equal to 3.3.
Keywords:
Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
VAWT
H-rotor
Experimental
Measured
Cp

1. Introduction which is imperative in strong and gusty wind conditions. The

Today, electric generation using wind power is increasing
around the globe. There is a growing interest in vertical axis wind
turbines (VAWT) which have the potential to reduce energy costs
[1]. Experimental data describing the aerodynamic properties of
a straight bladed (VAWT) are required to verify simulation models.
This paper deals with the straight bladed H-rotor Darrieus turbine.
The lift type VAWT, first invented by Darrieus in 1931 [2], has been
and is currently operated in different shapes and sizes around the
world [3e5]. At Uppsala University a straight bladed 12 kW H-rotor
has been designed and built. The variable speed passive stall
regulated turbine has a shaft directly connecting the turbine to the
rotor of the generator i.e. direct drive. The generator is a synchro-
nous permanently magnetized machine with a cable wound stator
[12]. When using a direct driven generator, there is no need for
a gearbox and associated losses are eliminated. Furthermore, the
direct drive reduces the torsional constraints on the shaft imposed
by eigen frequency oscillations [6]. The electric excitation of the
rotor becomes unnecessary by using high-energy permanent
magnets which also eliminates rotor losses. The generator is
designed to be able to handle a higher current and also a higher
voltage than rated, i.e. designed to have high overload capacity [13].
Thus it can control the turbine in strong wind conditions. The
turbine’s power absorption can thereby be controlled electrically,
electrical power control makes an active mechanical power control
of the wind turbine, such as pitch control, superfluous. One of the
main benefits of this concept is its inherent simplicity which is
expected to reduce maintenance costs. The construction of this
turbine is described in [7e9]. The wind turbine is erected north of
Uppsala at Marsta meteorological observatory (N 59
550 3200 , E 17

350 1200 ), which is a well characterized wind site [10].
In this paper measurements of power coefficient as a function of
tip speed ratio (Cp(l)) are presented. Measurement of CP as a func-
tion of l gives information both on aerodynamic properties of the
turbine and important knowledge on how to control the turbine to
operate at its optimum l. The measurements performed are
inspired by the recommendations for measuring Cp(V) (power
coefficient as a function of wind speed) in international standard
IEC 61400-12-1 [11] which have been followed as far as possible.
The measurement deviates from IEC 61400-12-1 in that: this work
presents a Cp(l) curve instead of a Cp(V) curve, the anemometer is
placed below hub height which is compensated for with a power
law wind profile and the air pressure and temperature is measured
at the meteorological observatory’s measurement mast [10] which
is located less then 100 m west from the turbine.
2. Theory
2.1. Power absorption

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ46 18 471 3566; fax: þ46 18 471 5810. The amount of power, Pmech, which can be absorbed by a wind
E-mail address: jon.kjellin@angstrom.uu.se (J. Kjellin). turbine, is given by

0960-1481/$ e see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.renene.2011.03.031
 J. Kjellin et al. / Renewable Energy 36 (2011) 3050e3053 3051

1 cross-section of 30 m2. The ends of the blades are tapered. The

Pmech ¼ C rAV 3 ; (1)
2 P tapering begins 1 m from the tip and give a chord at the tip that is
60% of the chord at the middle of the blade. In Table 1 the most
where Cp is the power coefficient, r is the density of the air, V is the
important aerodynamic design parameters are presented. Most
wind speed and A is the cross-section area of the turbine which is
design parameter choices are explained in [7].
calculated as the turbine diameter multiplied with the blade length.
The H-rotor’s three blades are connected to the rotating shaft
The power coefficient represents the aerodynamic efficiency of the
through two streamlined struts per blade. The struts have
wind turbine and can be described as a function of the tip speed
a NACA0025 inspired profile that is shorted at the trailing end. The
ratio, l, which is defined as
heights of the trailing edges varies with the distance from the hub
uR and are 38 mm close to the hub, 18 mm at the middle and 6 mm
l ¼ ; (2)
V where the strut is connected to the blade. The chord length for the
struts is 320 mm close to the hub, 280 mm at the middle and
where u is the angular velocity of the turbine, R is the turbine
200 mm where it is attached to the blade. The mounting angle of
radius and V is the undisturbed wind speed. The mean electrical
the struts is 17.6
relative to the horizontal plane. The shaft,
power, Pel,mean, from a three phase generator for a time interval
enclosed by a supporting tubular tower, is directly connected to the
much longer then the period time of the generator is found as
rotor of the generator. Power absorption is limited by passive stall
1X N regulation controlled by the generator. The properties of the
Pel;mean ¼ 3I U ; (3) generator are listed in Table 2.
N i ¼ 1 AC;i AC;i

where UAC is the AC voltage of one phase, IAC is the AC current of the
same phase and N is the number of samples used to calculate the 3.2. Wind turbine operation
mean value. By combining Equations (1) and (3), the power coef-
ficient can be calculated as The turbine has been operated at different constant rotational
speeds during this experiment, to gather as many different values
Pel;mean for l as possible during the test period. In this way, a more accurate
CP ¼ ; (4)
1 curve of Cp(l) can be achieved than at constant l operation, i.e.
rAV 3
2 normal operation. Furthermore in normal operation kinetic energy
where each CP value is calculated from Pel,mean divided by the mean stored in the turbine has greater impact on the measurements since
1 the rotational speed varies when the wind speed changes. An
of rAV 3 for the same period of time. electronic control system connected to the generator has been used
2
to set the rotational speed of the turbine during the experiment.
2.2. Normalization of measured data A description of the control system and experimental data on its
performance can be found in [9]. During the experiments the
The available wind speed data is converted from the measured turbine was run at two fixed rotational speeds. The experimental
height to the hub height of the turbine with the power law wind conditions are summarized in Table 3.
profile as
 a
z 3.3. Meteorological measurements
Vz ¼ Vz0 ; (5)
z0
where a is calculated from measured wind shear, z0 is the The site where the wind turbine is placed is a well characterized
anemometer height and z is the hub height. This deviates from the wind site, where the wind shear and the wind distribution are
recommendations in IEC 61400-12-1 but represents the best use of known from several years of measurements, see [10]. The data of air
existing data. pressure, temperature and wind direction that is used in this paper
As stated in the recommendations from IEC 61400-12-1 the is collected at a meteorological measurement station less then
measured data has been sampled as 10 min mean values and 100 m from the wind turbine.
normalized to sea level air density as: A cup anemometer (VAISALA WMS302) is placed on a 4.64 m
pole 15 m (2.5 times the rotor diameter) from the turbine. By using
 1 the known wind shear profile, the measured velocity is interpo-
r10 min 3 lated to the hub height of 6 m. The power law, Equation (5), is used
Vn ¼ V10 min ; (6)
r0 to model the wind shear using a power law exponent of 0.1850 that
is calculated from the measured wind shear presented in [8].
where r0 is the reference air density (1.225 kg/m3) and r10 min is
calculated as
Table 1
B10 min Nominal properties of the wind turbine.
r10 min ¼ ; (7)
R0 $T10 min Power (kW) 12
Rotational speed (rpm) 127
where B10 min is the measured air pressure, T10 min is the measured Blade tip speed (m/s) 40
temperature and R0 is the gas constant (287.05 J/(kg K)). Wind speed (m/s) 12
Number of blades 3
Swept area (m2) 30
3. Method
Hub height (m) 6
Turbine radius (m) 3
3.1. Wind turbine characteristics Blade length (m) 5
Chord length (m) 0.25
The vertical axis wind turbine is rated as a 12 kW turbine at Aerodynamic control Passive stall
Blade airfoil NACA0021
12 m/s. With its 5 m high blades and diameter of 6 m it has a swept
3052 J. Kjellin et al. / Renewable Energy 36 (2011) 3050e3053

Table 2 Table 3
Nominal properties of the generator. Experimental conditions.

Power (kW) 12 Wind speed range (m/s) 0e11

Phase voltage (V) 156 Weibull scale factor (m/s) 5.24
Current (A) 25.7 Weibull form factor 1.94
Electrical frequency (Hz) 33.9 Rotational speed (rpm) 48 and 57
Electric efficiency (%) 95.9 Type of site Field
Rotational speed (rpm) 127
Number of poles 32
Slots per pole and phase 5/4
Stator inner diameter (mm) 760 the generator losses are compensated for by dividing the measured
Stator outer diameter (mm) 886 absorbed power with the simulated generator efficiency for the
Air gap width (mm) 10 present generator speed and load.
Generator length (mm) 222
The maximum error in the measured CP can be calculated as
a propagation of the maximum errors in the measured wind speed
and measured power as
3.4. Experimental setup    
vC  vC 
jDCP;max j ¼  P $DVmax  þ  P $DPmax ; (10)
vV vP
The experimental setup consists of the complete wind turbine,
described in Tables 1 and 2, a control system [9], electrical loads1 where Cp,max is the maximum possible error in CP, DVmax is the
and the anemometer. The current is measured via current trans- maximum error in the wind speed measurement, DPmax is the
ducers (LEM HAL 50-S), which have an accuracy of 1%. The voltage maximum possible error in the power measurement.
is measured with voltage transducers (LEM LV 25-P) which have an
accuracy of 1%. All data is logged with a DAQ card (USB DUX 12 bit2) 3.5.2. Data rejection
and the measurement setup (transducers and daq card) is cali- Data containing wind speeds outside of the range 3e17 m/s, has
brated against a high precision multimeter (APPA 207). been rejected as specified in IEC 61400-12-1. Samples collected
when the anemometer is in the wake of the turbine are rejected.
3.5. Data acquisition and treatment Moreover, samples with rotational speed less then 36 rpm or power
less then 100 W are rejected. Bins containing fewer samples then 20
The raw data is logged to a hard drive at 1 kHz. The raw data is are neglected.
then pre-treated in a program that converts the data to SI units and
calculates 10 min averages of wind speed, power and rotational
speed. At the meteorological mast the air pressure, temperature
4. Results
and wind direction are logged, treated and delivered as 10 min
average values. The average values are then treated in a program
The measurement campaign started the 23rd of March 2009 and
where the method of bins described in Section 3.5.1 is imple-
ended the 26th of May 2009 and resulted in around 350 h of data
mented. The generator losses3 are compensated for to get a Cp curve
during operation after certain data had been rejected as described
for just the turbine (aerodynamic). Friction losses in the bearings of
in Section 3.5.2. The measured Cp(l) curve is shown in Fig. 1. The
the generator and tower are considered as small and neglected in
peak aerodynamic Cp is 0.29 and occurs when l equals 3.3. Fig. 1
this study.
also shows a curve fit of Cp(l) and the measured samples used to
calculate the curves. Each value on the measured curve corresponds
3.5.1. Method of bins and error estimation
to at least 3 h of measured data.
The method of bins is used as recommended in IEC 61400-12-1
An estimation of the mean of the maximum possible error in
[11] to analyze measured data. All measured data is presented as
each bin calculated using Equation (10) is shown in Fig. 2. The wind
10 min mean values. The measured l is divided into bins as
speed measurement has a large impact on the error estimation and
! causes the large intervals.
1X N ui;j R
li ¼ ; (8)
Ni j ¼ 1 Vn;i;j Cp(λ)
0.5
Measured points
where li is the mean value of all calculated values of l that fits in 0.45 bins
that bin. u is the measured rotational speed, Vn,i,j is sample j of the 0.4
curve fit

normalized wind speed that belongs to bin i and R is the turbine 0.35
radius. For each l-bin a Cp-bin is calculated as
0.3

X
Cp

N 0.25
1
Cpi ¼ Cp ; (9)
Ni j ¼ 1 n;i;j 0.2

0.15
where Cpn;i;j is calculated as in Equation (4) using the power calcu- 0.1
lated from the normalized wind speed for each sample compared to
0.05
the mean absorbed power Pel for the same sample. For each sample
0
1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5
λ
1
12 heaters (Duracraft CZ-190820E, 26.5 U, 2 kW) connected in parallel.
Fig. 1. Cp as a function of l from the constant speed measurement. The line is the curve
2
http:/www.linux-usb-daq.co.uk/tech2_usbdux/.
3
The total generator losses are taken from FEM simulations, a verification of FEM calculated using the method of bins, dashed line is a curve fit and the rings are the
simulations against experimental data can be found in [12]. measured samples (10 min averages) used to calculate the curves.
 J. Kjellin et al. / Renewable Energy 36 (2011) 3050e3053
Maximum error for each bin
0.5
0.45
0.4
0.35
0.3
Cp
0.25
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
λ contributions.
Fig. 2. The estimated maximum error for each measured bin.
5. Discussion
The constant speed measurements show the optimum l to be
3.30 which gives a CP of 0.29. Furthermore, the CP(l) curve is quite
flat around its maximum, which makes it easier for the control
system to find the optimum l when operating the turbine at
constant tip speed ratio. The spreading of the data samples is quite
low despite the high number of collected samples and the
measured CP(l) curve corresponds well to the samples, as can be
seen in Fig. 1. A more accurate wind speed measurement might
move the curve slightly.
Data is published for Sandia’s 5 m Darrieus turbine which is in
the same order of size [14]. The original Sandia’s turbine had a top
CP of 0.29 which is close to the result showed in this paper. Later,
with improved blades CP, was increased to 0.39. Likewise, improved
blade and strut profiles for the prototype presented here would
probably increase the power coefficient similar to the later Sandia
turbine. However, the main goal for the present prototype has been
to verify the whole system (aerodynamic, mechanic and electric),
rather than optimizing the aerodynamic performance.
The maximum possible error estimation in the CP curve is
considerable. Error in the measured wind speed (from the data-
sheet for the anemometer4) has a high impact as the calculated
power in the wind scales to the cube of the wind speed. However,
the error estimation gives the maximum possible error, not the
actual error.
6. Conclusions
A 12 kW vertical axis H-rotor type wind turbine has been built
and tested at Uppsala University. The measurement campaign
presented in this paper lasted for three months during spring 2009
4
http://www.vaisala.com/files/WMS301and302%20Quick%20Reference%20Guide.
pdf.
3053
and resulted in the CP(l) curve for the turbine. The maximum
measured CP was 0.29 and was achieved during operation at
different constant rotational speeds. The results from this
measurement will be used as parameters in the control system of
the turbine, to run it at optimum tip speed ratio.
Acknowledgments
Funding agencies Stiftelsen Olle Engkvist Byggmästare, Civi-
lingenjörs-förbundets Miljöfond, Swedish Energy Agency and
VINNOVA are acknowledged for contributing funds making this
work possible. Furthermore, Draka Kabel AB and SKF are
acknowledged for contributions. Dr. A. Wolfbrandt and Dr. K.E.
Karlsson are acknowledged for assistance with electromagnetic
FEM modeling of generator. Hans Bergström is acknowledged for
meteorological measurements. Andreas Solum, Marcus Berg, Saed
4 4.5 Mousavi and Anders Goude are also acknowledged for their
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