Active Blade Pitch Control for Straight Bladed Darrieus Vertical Axis Wind Turbine of New Design

As Development of small vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT) for urban use is becoming an interesting topic both within industry and academia. However, there are few new designs of vertical axis turbines which are customized for building integration. These are getting importance because they operate at low rotational speed producing very less noise during operation, although these are less efficient than Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWT). The efficiency of a VAWT has been significantly improved by H-Darrieus VAWT design based on double airfoil technology as demonstrated by the authors in a previous publication. Further, it is well know that the variation of the blade pitch angle during the rotation improves the power efficiency. A blade pitch variation is implemented by active blade pitch control, which operates as per wind speed and position of the blade with respect to the rotor. A double multiple stream tube method is used to determine the performance of the H-Darrieus VAWT. The power coefficient is compared with that of a fixed pitch and a variable pitch double airfoil blade VAWT. It is demonstrated that an improvement in power coefficient by 20% is achieved and the turbine could start at low wind speed.