Blade performance analysis and design improvement of a small wind turbine for rural areas

Abstract

Electrification projects based on renewable energy technology have demonstrated to be suitable for providing electricity to rural communities. In the region of Cajamarca, Peru, a wind electrification project has been implemented to provide electricity to the rural community of El Alumbre. To develop this project the wind turbine IT-PE-100 was designed. The turbine was built for the specific environmental conditions of the mountainous region of the Andes. This thesis focused on the performance identification of the current blades of the IT-PE-100. It also presents determinate modifications to the blade design improving the Gross Annual Energy Production of the turbine in the environmental conditions of Cajamarca. To conduct this study the software PROPID has been used to perform the analysis regarding the different modifications. The optimum combination of the modifications yielded approximately 20% more energy annually produced with high performance in high wind ranges. This study demonstrated that small changes in the blade design of IT-PE-100 allow a better exploitation of the wind resource. Also, it encourages further research in experimental studies as wind tunnel experiments to validate the optimization model.