Studying of 100 KW Micro Wind Farm for Low Wind Speed Machines

Abstract

Wind machine has become more important to the renewable energy section. However, the wind speed is the major factor to the wind machine power plant. The kinetic energy from the wind converts to electrical energy by the wind machine. The efficient of a good wind machine is about 35 percent. Additionally, the feasible plant factor of wind machine or wind farm could not be lower than 0.2. The higher efficiency of wind machine will shorter pay back period of the power plant investment. However, if the high wind machine designed using in the low wind speed zones, the plat factor is lower than 0.1. Therefore there is not feasible for the investment. Because the most megawatt wind machine is designed for high wind speed area. Thailand and some areas around the world is not suitable for high wind machine design, therefore this paper is presented new concept design and implementation of low wind speed machine integration into micro wind farm by using 20 units of 5 kw low speed wind turbine to 100 kw grid connect system. This 5 kW wind machine is designed for cut in wind speed of 2 m/s and generates electricity of 5000 watts at wind speed of 9 m/s. The designing of micro wind farm configuration and results is presented in this study. Consequence in after 3 months of plant installation, the results showing that the small wind machine wind farm shown the significant plant factor of about 0.22, that higher than a single unit of 100 kW high wind speed wind machine. This project was located at King’s farm project in the rural area of Thayang, Pecthaburi Provincein the Southern of Thailand. The investigation and study is still carrying on for further development of low wind wind machines.