Vertical wind turbines replace the “pinwheel” you already know, with up to 15% more wind power generation efficiency.

The pinwheel wind turbines could soon be replaced by more efficient systems: vertical wind turbines with high efficiency in cluster.

New research from Oxford Brookes University shows that on large wind farms, designing a vertical turbine operating in pairs results in a 15 percent increase in power generation efficiency. The team from Engineering, Computing and Mathematics (ECM), led by Professor Iakovos Tzanakis, has been studying the turbine model in simulated environments for more than 11,500 hours to draw new conclusions.

Standing wind turbines.

They found that the Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT) was much more efficient than the traditional wind turbines, the Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine (HAWT). The VAWT revolves around a vertical shaft above the ground, and the turbines increase efficiency when mounted in a mesh system. The location of every turbine on a wind farm is just as important as the giant windmill itself.

” This study is proof that the wind farms of the future should be vertical, ” said Professor Tzanakis . VEWTs can stand close together, increase efficiency for each other and ultimately, will help reduce electricity costs. In the long run, VAWTs can help accelerate the transition to green energy ”.

According to the 2021 Global Wind Energy Report , we will need to triple the installation speed of wind turbine farms within the next decade before we reach our carbon neutral goal and reduce the damage of climate change. .

Systematically installing a vertical turbine increases efficiency per turbine by 15%.

“Modern wind farms are one of the most efficient ways to generate clean electricity we have, but they have one major design flaw: when the wind hits the first row of turbines, air turbulence occurs. They damage the performance of the rear turbines , ”said lead author Joachim Toftegaard Hansen, the report’s lead author.

New research from Oxford Brookes University is the first detailed analysis of wind turbine performance, taking into account aspects such as the wind pickup angle, the direction of the turbine, the position of the turbines and the optimal number of rotors. . It is also the first scientific report to demonstrate the efficiency of a systematically placed VEWT turbine.