Wind Power Basics

Wind Power

• Power output from a wind turbine:

• Density of air 800 times less than water  leads directly to

large size of a wind turbine
– A 3MW wind turbine may have more than 90 m rotor diameter
• Power coefficient  fraction of power in the wind that may
be converted by turbine into mechanical work
– Theoretical maximum value of 0.593 (the Betz limit)
– Varies with tip speed ratio, (ratio of rotor tip speed to free wind speed)
 only a maximum for a unique tip speed ratio
 Wind Power contd.

• Major increases in output power can only be achieved by

increasing swept area of rotor or by locating wind turbines on
sites with higher wind speeds
• Hence, continuous increase in rotor diameter of wind turbines
from less than 30 m to more than 100 m
– A tripling of rotor diameter leads to x9 increase in power output
• A doubling of wind speed leading to x8 increase in power
• Thus, wind farms developed in areas of highest wind speeds
and turbines optimally located within wind farms
 Nature of Wind
• Wind is highly variable, both geographically and temporally
• Variability over very wide range, both in space and time
• Topography has a major effect on wind climate
• On a large scale, spatial variability - many different climatic
regions in world, some much windier than others
– These regions largely dictated by latitude, which affects amount of
insolation
• On a smaller scale, within any one climatic region - largely
dictated by physical geography
– proportion of land and sea, size of land masses, presence of
mountains or plains
• Type of vegetation have significant influence through its
effects on absorption or reflection of solar radiation, affecting
surface temperatures, and on humidity
 Nature of Wind contd.

• More locally, more wind on tops of hills and mountains than

in lee of high ground or in sheltered valleys
• Further locally, wind velocities significantly reduced by
obstacles such as trees or buildings
• At a given location, temporal variability on a large scale
amount of wind may vary from one year to next, with even
longer scale variations on a scale of decades or more
• Long-term variations not well understood  make it difficult
to make accurate predictions of economic viability of
particular wind farm projects
 Nature of Wind contd.
• On timescales shorter than a year, seasonal variations are
much more predictable
• Large variations on shorter timescales, reasonably well
understood but often not very predictable more than a few
days ahead
• Depending on location, considerable variations with time of
day (diurnal variations), usually fairly predictable
• Predictability of wind important for integrating large wind
power into electricity network  to allow other generating plant
supplying network to be organised appropriately
• On timescales of minutes to seconds, wind speed variations
known as turbulence
– have significant impact on design and performance of individual wind
turbines, and power quality
 Nature of Wind contd.

Van der Hoven (1957)

constructed wind speed
spectrum from long and
short-term records,
showing clear peaks
corresponding to
synoptic, diurnal and
turbulent effects

• ‘Spectral gap’ between diurnal and turbulent peaks  synoptic and

diurnal variations quite distinct from higher frequency fluctuations of
turbulence
• A high value indicates a significant change in wind speed over the
corresponding time period
 Nature of Wind contd.

Wind speed spectrum

Large-scale movements of
air masses account for 3
peaks on macro-
meteorological side of
spectrum
Diurnal Pattern caused by
different temperatures at
day and night
Depressions and Anti-
cyclones usually occur with
periods of about 4 days
Annual Pattern varies with
degree of latitude and
vanishes in close proximity
to equator
 Variations in Wind Speed
• Year-to-year variation in annual mean wind speeds hard to predict
• Wind speed variations during a year well characterised in terms of a
probability distribution
• Weibull distribution give good representation of variation in hourly mean wind
speed over a year

– F(U) fraction of time for which hourly mean wind speed exceeds U
– Characterised by two parameters:
• ‘shape parameter’ k  describes variability about mean
• ‘scale parameter’ c related to annual mean wind speed U by
• Γ  complete gamma function Γ (n) = (n-1)!
• This can be derived by consideration of probability density function

Since
 Variations in Wind Speed contd.
• Special case of Weibull
distribution is Rayleigh
distribution, with k = 2
• Higher value of k, 2.5 or 3,
indicates a site where
variation of hourly mean
wind speed about annual
mean is small
• A lower value of k, 1.5 or 1.2,
indicates greater variability
about mean speed

Example Weibull distributions

 Boundary Layer
• Principal effects governing properties of boundary layer are strength of
geostrophic wind, surface roughness, Coriolis effects due to earth’s
rotation and thermal effects
• Influence of thermal effects classified into 3 categories
– stable, unstable, neutral stratification
• Unstable stratification occurs when there is lot of surface heating
– Warm air near surface to rises
– As it rises, expands due to reduced pressure and, cools adiabatically
– If cooling is not sufficient to bring air into thermal equilibrium with
surrounding air then it continue to rise, give rise to large convection cells
– Result is a thick boundary layer with large-scale turbulent eddies
• Lot of vertical mixing and transfer of momentum, results in small change
of mean wind speed with height
 Boundary Layer contd.

• Stable stratification  if adiabatic cooling effect causes rising

air to become colder than its surroundings, its vertical motion
will be suppressed

• Occurs on cold nights when ground surface is cold

– Turbulence dominated by friction with ground and wind shear
(increase of mean wind speed with height) can be large
• Neutral atmosphere  adiabatic cooling of air as it rises such
that it remains in thermal equilibrium with its surroundings
• Often the case in strong winds, when turbulence caused by
ground roughness causes sufficient mixing of boundary layer
 Boundary Layer contd.

• Neutral stability usually most important situation to consider

– particularly when considering turbulent wind loads on a turbine, since
these are largest in strong winds
• Unstable conditions  can result in sudden gusts from a low
level
• Stable conditions  give rise to significant asymmetric
loadings due to high wind shear
– There can be rapid changes in wind direction with height in this
situation
 Boundary Layer contd.
• In neutral atmosphere, boundary layer properties depend mainly on surface
roughness and Coriolis effect
• Surface roughness is characterised by roughness length zo
• Wind speed at top of boundary layer 

h  height of boundary layer

Typical surface roughness lengths u∗  friction velocity
Wind Shear Profile
 Wind Shear Profile contd.

• Typically, winds increase further off the ground, a microscale

phenomenon called wind shear
• How much wind speeds increase with height depends on
– prevailing wind speeds at other heights
– type of surface
• Given a wind speed (v1) at one height (h1), the wind speed at
another height (h2) can be calculated as follows

z0  index that describes roughness of surface

Range  0.01 for flat landscapes to 2.0 in town centres
 Wind Shear Profile contd.

Two important insights follow from this:

1. In rough areas, especially built-up areas, height of turbine
hub much more important than off-shore, as wind speed
change slower along distance from surface
2. For large turbines, difference between wind speed
experienced by blade tips at top and bottom vary much more
in rough areas
– forces that cause additional wear and tear
 Gust Wind Speeds

• Useful to know maximum gust speed which can be expected

to occur in any given time interval
• Usually represented by a gust factor G
– ratio of gust wind speed to hourly mean wind speed
– function of turbulence intensity, and duration of gust
• Gust factor for a 1-second gust larger than for a 3-second
gust, since every three-second gust has within it a higher one-
second gust
• An empirical expression 

Iu  longitudinal turbulence intensity

 Aerodynamics of Horizontal axis
Wind Turbines
• Wind turbine extracts kinetic
energy (KE) from wind
• Loosing some of its KE, mass of air
passing through rotor disc slows
down
• No air flows across boundary and
so mass flow rate of air flowing
along stream-tube will be same for
all stream-wise positions along
stream-tube Assuming affected mass of air remains
• Because air within streamtube separate from air which does not pass
through rotor disc and does not slow down
slows down, but does not become
• A boundary surface can be drawn
compressed, cross-sectional area
containing affected air mass
of stream-tube must expand to • This boundary can be extended upstream
accommodate slower moving air as well as downstream forming a long
stream-tube of circular cross-section
 Aerodynamics of Horizontal axis
Wind Turbines contd.
• Sudden step change in velocity neither possible nor desirable
– because of enormous accelerations and forces this would require
• Pressure energy can be extracted in a step-like manner, and all
wind turbines operate in this way.
• Presence of turbine causes approaching air to slow down 
when air arrives at rotor disc its velocity < freestream wind
speed
• Stream-tube expands as a result of slowing down  because
no work has yet been done by air, its pressure rises to absorb
decrease in kinetic energy
 Aerodynamics of Horizontal axis
Wind Turbines contd.
• As air passes through rotor disc, drop in pressure such that,
on leaving, air is below atmospheric pressure level
• Air proceeds downstream with reduced speed and static
pressure: this region of flow called the ‘wake’
• Far downstream, pressure in wake must return to
atmospheric level for equilibrium to be achieved
• Rise in pressure at the expense of KE  causes additional
slowing down of wind
• Between far upstream and far wake conditions, no change in
pressure exists but reduction in KE
 Actuator Disc Concept

• Mechanism described earlier accounts for extraction of

kinetic energy
• Do not explains what happens to that energy
– It may be put to useful work but some may be spilled back into wind
as turbulence and eventually be dissipated as heat
• Analysis of aerodynamic behaviour of wind turbines by
considering energy extraction process
• General device that carries out this task is called an actuator
disc
 Actuator Disc Concept contd.
• Upstream  stream-tube cross-
sectional area < disc area
• Downstream  stream-tube cross-
sectional area > disc area
• Expansion of stream-tube  because
mass flow rate must be same
everywhere
• Mass of air which passes through a
given cross-section of stream-tube in
a unit length of time  ρAU ρ  air density
A  cross-sectional area
• Mass flow rate must be same U  flow velocity
everywhere along stream-tube

∞ refers to conditions far upstream

D refers to conditions at disc
W refers to conditions in far wake
 Actuator Disc Concept contd.

• Usual to consider that actuator disc induces a velocity

variation which must be superimposed on free stream
velocity

• Stream-wise component of induced flow at disc given by

a  axial flow induction factor, or inflow factor

• At the disc, net stream-wise velocity is

 Simple Momentum Theory

• Air passing through disc undergoes overall change in velocity,

U∞ − UW
• Rate of change of momentum = change of velocity x mass
flow rate

• Force causing this change of momentum comes entirely from

pressure difference across actuator disc
– because stream-tube completely surrounded by air at atmospheric
pressure, which gives zero net force.
• Therefore, net force 
 Simple Momentum Theory contd.

• Pressure difference = (p+D − p−D)

• Bernoulli’s equation applied separately to upstream and
downstream sections of stream-tube
– separate equations necessary because total energy different upstream
and downstream
• Bernoulli’s equation  under steady conditions, total energy
in flow, comprising kinetic energy, static pressure energy and
gravitational potential energy, remains constant provided no
work is done on or by fluid
• For a unit volume of air
 Simple Momentum Theory contd.

• Upstream,

• Assuming flow to be incompressible (ρ∞ = ρD) and horizontal

(h∞ = hD) then

• Similarly, downstream,

• Then, 

• So,  half the axial speed loss in stream-

tube takes place upstream of actuator disc and half
downstream
 Power Coefficient

• Force on air, from the Eq.

• Force concentrated at actuator disc, rate of work done by

force  TUD
• Hence, power extraction from air 
• Denominator
• A power coefficient defined as  represents power
available in air, in
absence of actuator
• Therefore, disc
 Lanchester-Betz Limit
• Maximum value of CP occurs when

 

• Maximum achievable value of the power coefficient  Lanchester-

Betz limit
– Frederic Lanchester (1915), British aeronautical pioneer
– Albert Betz (1919), German aerodynamicist
• No wind turbine has been designed that is capable of exceeding
Lanchester-Betz limit
• Limit caused not by any deficiency in design
• But, stream-tube has to expand upstream of actuator disc cross-
section of tube where air is at the full, free-stream velocity is
smaller than area of disc
 Lanchester-Betz Limit contd.

• CP could more fairly be defined as

but this not the accepted definition of CP