Wind Power @ UU

Background

Wind energy is both free of charge and renewable, it has no polluting discharges and is therefore a good complement to regulated energy sources such as hydropower. The research in the wind group in the division of electricity at Uppsala university revolves around three topics; vertical axis wind turbines, advanced modelling of wind turbines and studies on permanent magnet electrical machines.

In vertical axis wind turbines, the blades are rotating around a vertical axis as opposed to a horizontal, as in conventional wind power plants. One of the advantages with a vertical axis is that the generator can be situated on the ground, which gives a better performance and cheaper construction costs. In 2006, a 12 kW turbine was developed and built at Marsta outside Uppsala. In 2009, a 200 kW turbine was built in Falkenberg, Sweden. Research in several areas have been performed on both these turbines and experimental results have been used to validate advanced models. Smaller scale turbines have also been built and studied. For instance a turbine has been installed on Antarctica.

To develop effective wind power plants, the aerodynamics must be modelled with good accuracy. This is a complex problem which is usually studied with different numerical methods. Studies include simulations and experimental verification on aerodynamics, aeroelastics as well as noise.

Permanent magnet electric machines can be used both as generators in wind power, wave power and current power and as electric motors for electric propulsion. Our research focuses primarily on designing electrical machines without rare earth elements. As alternative permanent magnet materials, we study both ferrites and future materials. We have designed and built several generators with ferrites and are currently studying the design of electric motors with ferrites and on how to best model ferrites in electric machine simulations. Regarding new materials, we look both at how to model more complex future magnetic materials and on what magnetic properties that is desired for future magnetic materials.

Aims

Our goal is to perform research that can lead to the development of more cost efficient and reliable wind turbines.

Approaches

We study complete vertical axis wind turbine systems, with both simulations and experiments.
We try to understand and model aerodynamics, which is crucial in order to develop efficient wind power plants.
We study and develop effective permanent magnet electrical machines.