Vertically and Horizontally Mounted Wind Mills : Wind Energy Production in Tampere University of Applied Sciences

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis was to gather information about vertical and horizontal wind mills and to complete a research on wind power production by wind mills which were installed in Tampere University of Applied Sciences. The horizontally mounted wind mill Windspot 3.5 and vertically mounted wind mill Cypress were installed in summer 2011 but they started functioning and supplying energy only during 2012.

In the theoretical part of this thesis wind speed and wind power production is discussed, various factors which could influence wind mills or energy extraction are also analyzed. In particular technical characteristics and power production of Windspot 3.5 and Cypress was taken into consideration. The data which was used in this study (wind speed, temperature, humidity) was collected from Tampere-Pirkkalan lentoasema and on-the-spot measurements were performed by Davis Vantage Pro 2 weather station. The total power production was calculated for April 2012 for horizontally mounted wind mill because performance of vertically mounted wind mill was not stable and therefore reliable enough for the research, however analysis of historical background of wind conditions includes data from 1980 till 2011.

As a result of the research efficiency of Windspot 3.5 within wind conditions during April 2012 was calculated. The final value was 2.6 % which means that conditions allow us to extract a certain amount wind energy but this wind mill has extracted only 2,6% of it. Since the average performance of a wind mill goes up to 20%, this result is not positive.

Further research is required to improve those results, since amount of produced energy with horizontal wind mill is not enough even for its own maintenance. In this thesis such measures as replacement and weather conditions analysis are suggested. However, it was figured out that replacement of wind mills is quite complicated issue due to heli-copter routes and restrictions coming with that. Taking this issue into consideration, a conclusion that these wind turbines should be used mainly for study purpose rather than reliable energy supply was made. Although, author of the thesis sees a possibility of improving turbines performance by concentrating on Finnish weather conditions and it influence on power production by these particular wind turbines.