Wind Energy Resource Utilization: A Review of Its Necessity, Interception Technology and Implementation Challenges

Abstract

The continuous use of non-renewable energy sources has caused a lot of harm to the earth’s atmosphere and humans. The need to increase the share of renewable energy in global energy usage has been strongly advocated internationally. In this work, wind energy was presented as a viable renewable energy option. Renewable energy with emphasis on wind energy, wind turbines and its types, the need for it to replace other injurious energy sources and the associated challenges hampering its deployment is a contribution toward the UN advocacy. The potential of wind energy and their technologies in terms of the turbine types: Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWT) and Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWT) including their mix were reviewed. Looking at the pros and cons of both the HAWT and the VAWT, and those of Savonius and Darrieus, it is imperative to strike a balance using their combinations. Such a hybrid offers the benefit of harnessing the gains on either side of the divide.  This is the reason attention is being devoted to research and development on combined VAWT in order to optimize the low starting torque of a Savonius with the high-performance coefficient of the Darrieus as the efficiency of VAWT increases when combined together with diverse modifications.  With the volume of on-going research targeted at the implementation challenges and various design considerations and practices to solve the problems, it is certain that these impediments will be tackled technologically and policy wise and society will be on its way to better utilization of enormous wind energy resources via interception using wind turbines. The technical challenges on the pathway towards the smooth implementation of wind energy technologies were identified to include output fluctuations and intermittencies; and to which solutions were proffered to include the need for a technology to always align and realign the blade position in a way as to maximally interact with the current prevailing wind direction and another to reinforce the rotors rotational speed with an appropriate speed required to meet up the rated output. It was recommended that attention be devoted to research and development on the combined vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) in order to optimize the high starting torque of the Savonius turbine with the high-performance coefficient of the Darrieus turbine.