A NEW TYPE OF WIND TURBINE TO SUIT THE SOLAR CHIMNEY FOR POWER PRODUCTION

Solar chimney uses the solar thermal energy to heat the air under the solar collector (canopy) which causes difference in density compared to the air outside at ambient temperature. This creates an updraft of air in the chimney. The air updraft created at the base of the chimney would rotate a wind turbine to generate power. This type of power plant requires very large footprint of area and thus research on turbogenerators which operates on very low updraft speed with small footprint of area is necessary.
The objective of this study is to investigate the use of a new type of wind turbine to be used to generate electricity using a small scaled experimental model of solar chimney of 7 m height and 3 m collector diameter. Four separate turbine enclosure cases were studied to investigate the electricity generation. They are the open-ended turbine, the close-ended turbine, cylindrical turbine enclosure and conical turbine enclosure. This is to address the current solar chimney power plant’s problem which is the use of conventional wind turbine which requires a minimum of 6 m/s of wind speed to operate.
The scope of the research is the modification of the existing model of solar chimney and the turbine unit. Experimental methods are primarily employed which begins with model design followed by fabrication and testing. For the electricity generation, the unconventional shape of the turbine requires a proper turbogenerator coupling to minimize vibration to the system. Once coupling and enclosures are fabricated, experimentations are performed from 8:00AM – 7:00PM where solar chimney temperature data were recorded hourly and voltage and current readings were recorded every second. The sampling rate of wind velocity, ambient temperature and solar intensity are recorded in 5 minute intervals.
From this research, it has been proven that electricity generation for very small scaled solar chimney using the new type of wind turbine is possible with the best case being the cylindrical turbine enclosure generating a maximum of 2.291W. This is obtained using a rigid turbogenerator coupling.