ENERGY

PRODUCING
Seminar BUILDINGS
On:
Submitted By- Rohit Arora
M.Tech Structural Engineering
NIT Patna
Roll No-1523019
INTRODUCTION
In today's energy hungry world where the
concepts of zero energy buildings and green
buildings are coming up which reduces the
energy consumption to bare minimum, a new
concept of energy producing building can be
introduced. Energy producing buildings not only
consume less energy but also they produces
energy on their own.
In this lecture,
 Buildings integrated with wind turbines
 Glass panels with photovoltaic cells

Will be discussed.
BUILDINGS INTEGRATED WITH WIND
TURBINES

Bahrain World Trade Centre, Bahrain City.

Apartment Building- “Strata-E1” or “Razor” at Elephant and
Castle, Southwark, London with 3 turbines integrated up at top.
 INTRODUCTION
At the present time the debates and discussion are being held about
viability of wind. Wind turbines are cost effective and efficient if they
are placed on high poles, or integrated with a facility in combination
with any renewable energy source.
Wind speed increases with height so engineers came to the idea of
installing wind turbines on top of buildings.

Rooftop wind farm at Oklahoma Medical Research

Foundation, Oklahoma City, Ohio, USA.
 WIND TURBINE IN URBAN
ENVIRONMENT
 Wind follows the path of minimum resistance by
going around obstacles such as hills, mountain
passes and buildings. If a wind turbine is capable
to use this increase in speed and density its energy
production can be up to two times higher than
when standing in an undistrubed flow.

 However, placed on the leeward side of a large

obstacle, the output will be reduced to half of the
yield normally expected. Since wind turbines
designed for urban areas are small, averaging does
not diminish the phenomena that describes the
power yield.
 REQUIREMENTS OF WIND TURBINE IN
URBAN ENVIRONMENT

 High conversion efficiency and low initial

cost.
 Good performance in complex winds.
 Safe operation in the urban environment.
 Low noise level.
 Simple, rugged design.
 Minimised maintenance.
 Aesthetic appearance.
 LOCATION OF WIND TURBINE
Locating between diffuser shaped buildings

In this case buildings are positioned in such a way that they act
as a diffuser for the wind turbine. Many tests were carried out
on horizontal axes wind turbines in ring shaped diffusers. This
combination results in a high aerodynamic efficiency compared
to other possibilities. The diffuser needs to be long in order to
generate an appreciable gain in aerodynamic efficiency. The
common shape of the diffuser augmented wind turbine is not
very suitable for the built environment. Because of that a
combination of “diffuser” and “ duct” is often applied.
Fig- The two towers of Bahrain World Trade Centre are not in same
vertical plane. The inclination generates diffusion effect thus
concentrating wind force towards the central wind turbines. This
increases the efficiency of building integrated wind turbines.
Fig-Wind Simulation on Bahrain World Trade Centre. The
red part shows high wind intensity and the blue colour
shows low wind intensity areas
Pearl River Tower is a 71-story, 309.6 m, clean technology
neofuturistic skyscraper at the junction of Jinsui
Road/Zhujiang Avenue West, Tianhe District, Guangzhou,
China.
Locating wind turbines in building facades
(Along edges of building)

Several designers have created building integrated wind turbines that

fuses magnificent sculpture-like facades to augment wind flows onto
turbines and generate more energy than is traditionally possible.
Simultaneously, these artistic wind generating facades overcome some
of the traditional problems with this type of dynamic facade, like noise
and vibration.

Many of these building integrated wind energy systems use the concept
of Wind Assisted Rotor Platform (WARP). These consist of small wind
turbines mounted to the exterior of an aerodynamically shaped
building. The saddle ridge shaped modules swirl around the building to
channel and amplify the flows of wind
Fig- Wind turbines integrated
along the edges into a Chicago
parking.
Kinetica Apartments, Dalston building, London
 Locating on the building rooftop
For locating on the roof it has to be kept in mind that the flow
separates at the leading roof edge and has an angle of about 30-40
degrees to the horizontal roof. For a Darrieus turbine this effect will
be less important. For common tip speeds the blades will experience
an almost horizontal flow. On a HAWT the tilt will have a larger
influence. The airfoils will stall, the aerodynamic efficiency will
decrease and the rotor load will be non-uniform. So the Darrieus
turbine seems preferable for locating on the roof of buildings.

Fig- Darrieus Turbine

Fig- Strata E1 “Razor”
 PROBLEMS WITH SUCH BUILDINGS
 The first building integrated with wind turbine-
Bahrain WTC has low efficiency and a large payback
time. It fulfils around 15% of the electricity needs.
 noise that turbines make[2].The wind flow creates
noise that can be uncomfortable no matter of the
frequency.
 The structures with integrated wind turbines are
unoccupied around the floors where they are placed.
 Rotation of turbine generates a centrifugal thrust on
the building.
 Vibrations causes dynamic loadings on the structure.
 High initial cost.
 Tricky designing of structures.
 Hazards due to heavy rotating machinery.
 ADVANTAGES
 Makes buildings self sufficient.
 Reduces dependence on fossil fuels.
 Reduces the carbon emission content of the
buildings.
 Uses renewable source of energy.
 Long term savings.
 A wind turbine between two towers such as in
Bahrain WTC is 25% more efficient than free
standing wind turbine.
 Acts as a landmark, tourists visits such buildings,
and gets educated and knowledge about the need
of such structures.
UPCOMING/PROPOSED STRUCTURES

“COR” Building, Miami, USA

Fig- Freedom Tower, New
York
Fig- Proposed Wind Turbines under a road bridge between Italy
and Scilla.
GLASS WITH PV CELLS

 Window/Facade glasses with PV cells is not a

new phenomena. But, earlier these glasses
came in different colors, gave uneasy feeling
to the residents.
 Now transparent glass panels with
photovoltaic cells have been developed.
 Thus such glass panels can replace our
orthodox glass panels with no transparency
what-so-ever and these produces electricity
too.
 Such glass is not completely transparent.
Pearl Tower- China. World’s First Zero energy Building, most energy
efficient building of the world, incorporates glass panels with PV cells.
WORKING OF PV CELLS
Compared to how solar energy has functioned through PV cells, the
method used by the transparent solar cell is somewhat
counterintuitive. In the most basic terms, solar PV cells capture the
photons and convert those pockets of light into electricity. By contrast,
a transparent cell would allow the light to pass directly through,
without capturing the photons.
Fig- Glass panels with PV cells. Reduced
transparency.
Glass with PV cells at Pfizer company’s building at Granada, Spain
ADVANTAGES
 Produces electricity with the help of sunlight.
Reduces dependence on fossil fuels.
 Solar cell farms requires large cover land. So,
glass with PV cells can save such use of land.
 Low maintenance.
 Transparent glass with PV cells absorbs only the
harmful UV and infrared rays of sun and allows
visible light to pass through.
 It reflects most of the heat. Therefore, in
summers inside temp of building doesn’t
escalates high. Thus, reducing the cooling
energy required, and vice versa in summers.
 CONCLUSION
The renewable sources of energy can be accommodated on the
structures to reduce the dependence of structures on fossil fuels.
The lesser use of fossil fuels means lesser carbon footprint of the
building.
To harness wind energy and solar energy large farms have to be set up.
Such farms requires large surface area to be set up.
So, even though a little high initial investment is required to set up
such turbines and glass with PV cells, it reduces the overall energy cost
over a long period of time and also results to a greener planet.
 REFERENCES
[1] http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/worlds-first-
building-integrated-wind-turbines.html

[2] http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/does-building-
integrated-wind-power-work.html

[3]http://www.awea.org/learnabout/publications/upload/
awea_and_canwea_sound_white_paper.pdf

[4] http://www.som.com/content.cfm/www_projects?sort_by=FW

[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strata_SE1

[6]http://www.buildinggreen.com/auth/article.cfm/2009/4/29/
The-Folly-of-Building-Integrated-Wind

[7] http://www.solaripedia.com/13/93/folly_of_building-
integrated_wind.html

[8]Mladen Bošnjaković, senior lecturer, MSc, renewable energy,

programming of CNC machines
[9] http://planetsave.com/2015/09/05/solar-power-windows-ready-for-
production.html

[10] http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/188667-a-fully-
transparent-solar-cell-that-could-make-every-window-and-screen-a-
power-source.html

[11] http://inhabitat.com/revolutionary-transparent-solar-cells-could-
produce-50-times-more-energy-than-conventional-solar.html
THANK YOU