Abstract

At present the harnessing of the wind energy is focused at highly potential wind sites where the average wind speed is high (>7m/s). However, in many undeveloped and even developing countries, there is no electrical power supply at all or there is no regular electrical power supply in vast areas. For example, in India, there are more than 80,000 villages which are still not connected to electrical power grid and connection of 18,000 remote villages are not commercial viable. Furthermore, there is 27% average power loss in the transmission and distribution lines. The situations in African and many South-East Asian counties are not much different. Therefore, generation of electrical power locally, and preferably from the renewably energy sources which do not pollute the atmosphere, is a viable solution. There are some geographical conditions and topology (landscape) which cause acceleration in wind speed. It includes crest of a hill, funnel effect and ridge oriented perpendicularly. The wind energy available at such locations can be harnessed. In this work, the plain of Ganges basin is selected for this purpose due to high pollution and the power demand of the region. The river becomes wide, forms several kilometer wide small and wide islands at different locations between Moradabad to Bhagalpur. It resembles a narrow bay of sea and due to this type of typical topography (like sea and coast), the wind speed increases at such riverine. Moreover, some potential locations are also found which were not spotted by satellite imaging. For harnessing the low wind power, both grid-tied and stand alone and schemes using wound-rotor induction generators are proposed. Both systems are tested successfully.

Keywords: Wind Energy Conversion System (WECS); Low wind speed; Pollution; Climate change; Induction generator; Stand-alone generation; Grid-tied generation