WIND ENERGY

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 PRINCIPLES OF WIND ENERGY CONVERSION
 Wind is air in motion, and it derives energy from solar radiation.

 Winds are broadly classified as Planetary winds & Local winds

 During day time, the

air over the land mass
heats up faster than
the air over the
oceans.

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At night the process is reversed as the air
cools more rapidly over land than water
over off-shore land, causing breeze.

On a global scale low pressure exists

near the Equator due to greater heating,
causing winds to blow from subtropical
belts towards the Equator.

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WIND ENERGY CONVERSION SYSTEM
Wind energy conversion systems (WECS)
are designed to convert the energy of wind
movement into mechanical power. With wind
turbine generators, this mechanical energy is
converted into electricity and in windmills this energy
is used to do work such as pumping water, mill
grains, or drive machinery.

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COMPONENTS OF WIND ENERGY CONVERSION SYSTEM (WECS):

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The components of WECS are:
 Blades
 Nacelle
 Power transmission system
 Generator
 Yaw control
 Brakes
 Controllers
 Tower

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Blades: An important part of a wind turbine that extracts wind energy. Blades are fixed to a hub which is a central solid
part of the turbine.

Nacelle: The nacelle houses the generator, the gearbox, the hydraulic system and yawing mechanism.

Power transmission system: Mechanical power generated by rotor blades is transmitted to the generator through a two-
stage gear box.

Generator: The conversion of mechanical power of wind turbine into the electrical power can be accomplished by one of
the following type of the electrical machine-
1. Synchronous machine 2. Induction machine

Yaw control: Yaw control continuously tracks and keeps the rotor axis in the wind direction.

Brakes: Braking of WEGs is done by full feathering. An emergency STOP activates the hydraulic disc brakes fitted to the
high speed shaft of the gear box.
Controllers: The modern large wind turbine generator require a versatile and reliable control system.

Tower: Towers are made from tubular steel, concrete or steel lattice. Because wind speed is getting higher with the height,
taller towers enable turbines to capture more energy and this way generates more electricity.

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 CLASSIFICATION OF WECs SYSTEM:
1. Broad classifications
a. Horizontal Axis Machines
b. Vertical Axis Machines
2. Size:
a. Small size (upto 2 KW)
b. Medium size (2 –100 KW)
c. Large size (100 KW and up) –There are two sub classes.
I. Single generator at a single site
II. Multiple generators sited at several places over an area.
3. Type of Output power:
(a) DC Output
I. DC generator
II. Alternator rectifier
(b) AC Output
I. Variable frequency, variable or constant voltage AC
II. Constant frequency, variable or constant voltage AC
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4. Rotational Speed
i. Constant speed with variable pitch blades
ii. Nearly constant speed with fixed pitch blades
iii. Variable speed with fixed pitch blades
5. Utilization of output
i. Battery storage
ii. Direct connection to an electromagnetic energy converter

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 wind turbine
• A wind turbine is a machine for converting the kinetic energy in wind into mechanical
energy
Wind turbines are classified into
two general types: horizontal axis
and vertical axis.
• A horizontal axis machine has its
blades rotating on an axis parallel
to the ground.
• A vertical axis machine has its
blades rotating on an axis
perpendicular to the ground.
• There are a number of available
designs for both and each type
has certain advantages and
disadvantages.

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Horizontal axis wind mills
a) Double blade wind mills
b) Single blade wind mills
c) Multi blade wind mills
d) Bicycle multiblade type i.e., Sail type
Vertical axis wind mills
a) Savonius or S type wind mill (low wind velocity)
b) Darrius wind mill (high wind velocity)

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Horizontal axis wind mills

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a) Double blade wind mills

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Single blade wind mills

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Multi blade wind mills

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Bicycle multiblade type i.e., Sail type

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Vertical axis wind mills

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Savonius or S type wind mill (low wind velocity)

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• The force that makes Savonius turbines turn is drag, which
makes them of drag-type VAWTs. The idea of their design
is pretty much similar to cup anemometers.

• there is always a cup facing the wind experiencing the

most drag exerted on its surface, while other cups have
their other round-shaped and hence drag-lowering surfaces
facing the wind.

• The important point about this design is that it would rotate no matter what direction the
wind blows.
• These types of wind turbines are also very good at working with low-speed winds, are
easy to manufacture and maintain, and are work well in turbulent wind.
• It is because the favorable and adverse drag forces are not so different from each other,
and therefore, the speed of rotation would not be so high.

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Darrius wind mill (high wind velocity)

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• The turbine consists of a number of curved
aerofoil blades mounted on a rotating shaft or
framework.
• The curvature of the blades allows the blade
to be stressed only in tension at high rotating
speeds.

• These types of wind turbines are the most

widely used type of vertical axis wind
turbines for power generation with curved
blades, C-shaped, that go from the top of
tower to the bottom where it is connected to
the generator shaft. They have good
efficiency because they rotate at higher
speeds that could generate more power.

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 Types of wind machines (turbines)
Horizontal–axis wind machines Vertical-axis wind machines

 Horizontal axis wind turbines have  The axis of rotation of vertical axis
their axis of rotation horizontal to wind turbine is vertical to the ground
the ground and almost parallel to the and almost perpendicular to the wind
wind stream. direction.
 These turbines has to face wind  These turbines can receive wind from
stream. Hence, yaw mechanism is any direction. Hence complicated yaw
provided. devices can be eliminated.

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 Horizontal–axis wind machines
 The generator and gearbox of these
machines are to be placed over the
tower which makes its design more
complex and expensive.
 The inspection and maintenance of
these turbines is difficult and costly.
 Smooth out-put
 Less noisy
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Vertical-axis wind machines
 The generator and the gearbox of
such systems can be housed at the
ground level, which makes the tower
design simple and more economical.
 The maintenance of these turbines can
be done at the ground level.
 Fluctuating out put.
 More noisy
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APPLICATIONS OF WIND ENERGY CONVERSION SYSTEMS

1. Pumping applications: Irrigation

Water supply, Domestic Water supply,
Industrial water supply.

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3. Electric Generation Applications:

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2. Direct Heat Applications:
 The mechanical motion derived from wind power can be used to drive heat
pumps or to produce heat from the friction of solid materials.
 This heat may then be stored in materials having a high heat capacity, such
as water, stones, salts etc.
 The heat may be used directly for such applications as heating and cooling
of water, and agricultural process-heat application.
 Examples of possible wind- powered agricultural process heat applications
include green house applications, crop drying, refrigeration, ventilation.

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4. Inter connected System:
 The important advantages to use wind-derived energy in combination with energy derived
from other sources, such as conventional fuels, sunlight, ocean thermal differences, bio
conversion fuels etc.
 In some areas wind blows intermittently, they need to store wind energy as their applications
requiring continuous power.

 The storage of wind energy is

costly. Hence it is advisable to
use wind derived energy in
combination with other forms of
energy.

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 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY

Geothermal energy is the thermal energy generated and

stored in the Earth.

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 STRUCTURE OF THE EARTH’S INTERIOR

 Crust (70-100 km)

 Mantle (2900 km)
 Core (3500 km)

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 Geothermal Resources
1. Hydrothermal resource
(a) Hot water field:- Hot water below 100oC comes out as a hot spring
(b) Liquid dominated resource or wet steam field:- Hot water trapped from
underground is at a temperature range of 175 to 315oC.
(c) Vapour dominated resource or dry steam:- Water is vaporized into steam
that reaches the surface in a dry condition at about 200oC and above 8 bar.
2. Geo-pressured resource
 It contains moderate high temperature brines (160oC) containing Dissolved
methane. These are trapped in deep sedimentary formation sealed.
 This source is available in thermal, mechanical and chemical.
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3. Hot dry rock resource
 Hot dry rock is a high temperature rocks at 650oC, heated by conductive
heat flow from magma, but contains no water.
 To tape this energy, the impermeable rock is fractured and water is
injected to create an artificial reservoir.
4. Magma resource
 Magma is a molten rock at temperature ranging from 700oC to 1600oC.
 This hot viscous liquid comes out at active volcanic vents and solidifies.

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 GEOTHERMAL POWER GENERATION

(1) Liquid dominated resource or Wet steam

(a) Flashed steam system
(b) Binary cycle system
(2) Vapour dominated resource or dry steam

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(a) Flashed steam system

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Binary cycle system

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Vapour dominated resource or dry steam

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 HYBRID PLANTS – GEOTHERMAL PREHEAT AND FOSSIL SUPERHEAT
Hybrid cycles: combination with other resources. Geothermal heat can be used for pre-
heating in a conventional power plants, or exhaust gases from a conventional power plant
can provide superheating in geothermal plants.

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 Advantages of Geothermal energy forms
 It is an energy source that reduces the dependence on fossil fuels.
 It causes less environmental impact than the uses of oil and coal.
 It is a great way to save energy and money.
 It is the renewable source of energy that has practically no intermittency,
has the highest energy density.
 Geothermal energy on the other hand has created many jobs for the local
people.

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 Disadvantages of geothermal energy forms

 It damages the landscape.

 It’s only available in certain locations.
 Installation cost of power plant is very high.
 Overall efficiency for power production is low, about 15%, compared to 35-
40% for fossil fuel plant.
 Steam and water coming out from underground may contain H2S, CO2, and
NH3. If these gases are vented into air, air pollution will be a real hazard.
 Drilling operation is noisy.

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 Applications of geothermal energy
 Generation of electric power: (5 kW geothermal power plant has been
installed at Manikaran by GSI and national aeronautical laboratory.
 Space heating: (Puga, J&K, 62.5 m3 hut is heated with geothermal water
and maintain the inside the temperature at 20oC.)
 Greenhouse heating: (Geothermal water is used at Chumathang, J&K, for
greenhouse cultivation)
 Refrigeration: (Geothermal energy based absorption refrigeration system
operates a 7.5 tonne capacity cold storage plant at manikaran (HP).)

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