Post by account_disabled on Feb 28, 2024 0:48:39 GMT -5
With inspiration from nature, the idea of SUMR (Segmented Ultralight Morphing Rotor) emerged, a hurricane-resistant, lightweight and flexible two-blade wind turbine!
In areas where wind energy is affected by hurricane intervention, a team of CU Boulder researchers is addressing the issue and following nature's example and reversing the turbine spin , to make those turbines more resistant to the Hurricanes.
“We are very bioinspired by palm trees, which can survive these hurricane conditions,” said Lucy Pao, chair of Palmer Endowed in the Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering.
Traditional wind tur C Level Executive List bines face the incoming wind, and to prevent them from being blown away by the tower, their blades must be sufficiently rigid .
A large amount of material is required to construct these relatively thick and massive blades, which increases their cost. However, the turbine blades on the downwind rotors face away from the wind, so there is less risk of them hitting the tower when the wind picks up.
Two-blade wind turbines can be lighter and more flexible, requiring less material and therefore less money to manufacture.
These downwind blades can also bend rather than break in strong winds, just like palm trees.
Over the past six years, along with collaborators from the University of Virginia, the University of Texas at Dallas, the Colorado School of Mines, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Pao's team has collaborated to develop the SUMR (Ultralight Morphing Rotor Segmented), a two-blade downwind rotor to test the performance of this lightweight concept in action.
On June at the American Control Conference, CU researchers presented results from a new study of four years of real-world data from the testing of its kilowatt demonstrator (SUMR-D) at the Flatirons Campus from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), just south of Boulder, Colorado.
They found that their two-blade wind turbine operated consistently and efficiently during periods of maximum wind gusts, a satisfactory result.
This innovative work could not come at a better time. Not only does climate change demand that we rapidly scale up more cost-effective and reliable renewable energy, but rising global temperatures are also likely to cause hurricanes to intensify.
The hidden brain of a turbine
One of the most complicated elements of wind power generation is dealing with too little or too much wind at the same time. When wind speed is too low, a turbine cannot produce a useful amount of energy. When gusts are too fast, they can push the limits of a turbine's capacity , causing it to shut down to prevent system overload.
Wind speed inconsistency has plagued wind energy since its inception; The time lost to shut down the system results in less energy and less efficient production.
Key to Pao's innovative contributions are improvements to the controller, the part of the turbine that determines when to be more or less aggressive in power production.
"We like to think of the controller as essentially the brain of the system," said Pao, lead author of the study and a member of the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI).
This hidden brain aims to produce efficient wind energy at low cost and with little wear and tear. The feedback controller does this by using measurements of the system's performance and then adjusts itself to improve performance, Pao said.
In areas where wind energy is affected by hurricane intervention, a team of CU Boulder researchers is addressing the issue and following nature's example and reversing the turbine spin , to make those turbines more resistant to the Hurricanes.
“We are very bioinspired by palm trees, which can survive these hurricane conditions,” said Lucy Pao, chair of Palmer Endowed in the Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering.
Traditional wind tur C Level Executive List bines face the incoming wind, and to prevent them from being blown away by the tower, their blades must be sufficiently rigid .
A large amount of material is required to construct these relatively thick and massive blades, which increases their cost. However, the turbine blades on the downwind rotors face away from the wind, so there is less risk of them hitting the tower when the wind picks up.
Two-blade wind turbines can be lighter and more flexible, requiring less material and therefore less money to manufacture.
These downwind blades can also bend rather than break in strong winds, just like palm trees.
Over the past six years, along with collaborators from the University of Virginia, the University of Texas at Dallas, the Colorado School of Mines, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Pao's team has collaborated to develop the SUMR (Ultralight Morphing Rotor Segmented), a two-blade downwind rotor to test the performance of this lightweight concept in action.
On June at the American Control Conference, CU researchers presented results from a new study of four years of real-world data from the testing of its kilowatt demonstrator (SUMR-D) at the Flatirons Campus from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), just south of Boulder, Colorado.
They found that their two-blade wind turbine operated consistently and efficiently during periods of maximum wind gusts, a satisfactory result.
This innovative work could not come at a better time. Not only does climate change demand that we rapidly scale up more cost-effective and reliable renewable energy, but rising global temperatures are also likely to cause hurricanes to intensify.
The hidden brain of a turbine
One of the most complicated elements of wind power generation is dealing with too little or too much wind at the same time. When wind speed is too low, a turbine cannot produce a useful amount of energy. When gusts are too fast, they can push the limits of a turbine's capacity , causing it to shut down to prevent system overload.
Wind speed inconsistency has plagued wind energy since its inception; The time lost to shut down the system results in less energy and less efficient production.
Key to Pao's innovative contributions are improvements to the controller, the part of the turbine that determines when to be more or less aggressive in power production.
"We like to think of the controller as essentially the brain of the system," said Pao, lead author of the study and a member of the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI).
This hidden brain aims to produce efficient wind energy at low cost and with little wear and tear. The feedback controller does this by using measurements of the system's performance and then adjusts itself to improve performance, Pao said.