Design and Development of Building Integrated Wind Turbine for Classroom Electrification at College Campus(VTU, Belagavi)

In developing countries like India, there are about hundred millions of small farmers and around eighty thousand villages that are yet to be electrified. Even though India has surplus of power generation, the shortage of electricity prevails due to inadequate grid connectivity. Also there are thousands of small scale industries consuming less than 10 kW of power. Currently Solar photo-voltaic (PV) generation has become a viable option for such applications. However, high cost, usage of large space, weather dependency, dust accumulation and unavailability of solar energy during night times are major barriers to the dissemination of PV generation. The poor efficiency encountered due to these issues can be greatly compensated by hybridization of small wind turbine with PV technology. The small wind turbines can also be mounted on roof tops of any commercial or domestic building to electrify the entire premises. So the proposed technology can have vital contribution if made cost-effective and efficient. Recently, vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT) are becoming economically viable option for small power capacity deployments due to their ability to collect wind from all the directions. This unique feature enables VAWT to operate efficiently under low speed and skewed wind conditions. Also VAWT requires small space for its operation, produces less noise and offers more efficiency as compared to traditional Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWT). Further, placement of generator on ground and small tower sway makes the installation and maintenance much easier. The most popular are H-Rotor VAWT due to their simple blade profile as compared to other VAWT systems. Further, fabrication of H-Rotor blade is simple and low cost due to symmetrical aerofoil section throughout the blade span.