Effect of change in power coefficient on the performance of wind turbines with different dimensions

Abstract

Due to rapid changes in wind velocity the power captured by a wind turbine varies continuously. Such operations are highly undesirable and needs controllers. Therefore in order to achieve the best performance of wind turbine under variable speed operation, there is a need to modify the design of wind turbine. Power coefficient, Cp is an important parameter that determines the power extracted by a wind turbine and also effect its performance. It is limited by Betz's limit to 0.593 and will vary with wind speed. It's variation under same operating condition may effect the performance of different machines in different manner. In this paper an attempt has been made to analyze such effect using fifteen wind turbines. Simulation results using MATLAB coding are found to be effective to propose few recommendations for the selection of wind turbines for variable wind speed zones.