Nowadays, wind energy is crucial for electricity companies as it is renewable and free resource. Malaysia has a good prospective in wind energy and have decided to opt for the wind energy to replace the fossil fuel which is non-renewable energy. Malaysia faces the four seasons such as southeast monsoon, northeast monsoon and two shorter periods of inter monsoon seasons. Hence, wind over in Malaysia is generally light with the speed less than 8 m/s.
The objective of this article is to analyse the performance of 300 Watts wind turbine to supply the energy for a power system. A wind turbine is instilled in front of Electrical Energy and Industrial Electronic System (EEIES) Research Cluster, Perlis. This small horizontal wind turbine manages to generate energy to charge the 600 Ah battery systems in the research lab and is pointed by a simple wind vane. Meanwhile, the maximum output voltage is 40V dc at the 5.54 m/s of wind speed.
Wind turbine is a rotating machine which converts the kinetic energy of wind into mechanical energy. When the wind flows past the turbine’s rotor blades, the blades turn and convert the wind energy into kinetic energy. This energy spins a rotor inside a generator and coverts into electrical energy. The more electrical energy generated the greater wind speed. Meanwhile, windmill is a machine that used mechanical energy. If mechanical energy is converted to electricity, the machine is called wind generator, wind turbine, wind power unit (WPU), wind energy converter (WEC), or aero generator.
Furthermore, Horizontal-axis wind turbines (HAWT) consists of motor raft and electrical generator which is must be pointed into the wind. It comprises a gearbox which turns the slow rotation of the blades into the speedy rotation that is suitable to drive an electrical generator. The turbine is constantly pointed upwind of the tower as a tower produces turbulence behind it.
It is essential to note that wind resource evaluation is a critical element in projecting turbine performance. Generally, annual average wind speeds of 5 m/s are required for grid-connected applications. Meanwhile, annual average wind speeds of 3 to 4 m/s may be adequate for non-connected electrical and mechanical applications.
The authors also added that Wind Power Density is a useful way to evaluate the resource available at the potential site. The wind power density reveals how much energy is available at the side by a wind turbine.
Nevertheless, the wind power is fluctuated as it will calm one day and howling the next. One of the most important tools in working with the wind, whether designing it or utilizing it, is a firm understanding of what factors that influent the power in the wind. The wind power could be classifies into two type which are Rotor Swept Area and Weibull Distribution.
In order to collect the data, the researcher utilized DAVIS Weather Station Vantage Pro2 (DWS) and Electrocoder. It manages to record the solar radiation, temperature, rain falls, wind speeds, wind direction, pressure and humidity. Speed and direction of the wind were measured by it which is installed at the top of the tower nearby the wind turbine. The Electrocoder is to measure the voltage where it records the data every second and manage to save the data for seven days. It will be downloaded once a week. The data on DWS and Electrocoder will be synchronizing to be recorded in every second.
From the data that have been collected, it has been proved that the wind speed is consistent at the specific time from 10.00 pm to 3.00 pm. Nevertheless, the wind fluctuates afterwards and at 3.00 pm, it drops. It starts to increase back at 4.00 pm until 10.00 pm. The maximum speed of wind blows is 6.22 m/s at the time of 6.39 pm and the maximum speed is 0 m/s at the time of 4.06 pm. This average value of the output voltage and wind speed has been recorded using the Electrocoder and DWS. The batteries merely can be charged after the wind turbine can produce voltage more than 12 Vdc systems.
In a nutshell, the performance of the wind turbine has been recorded and being analyzed by the authors. From the collected data, it has been proven that the wind turbine is reliable as it produced 40 Vdc at the speed of wind, 5.54 m/s have been recorded. Plus, it also has a good potential to meet the nominal power performance as specified by the manufacturer.