WINDUR

FP7

The market for small wind turbines has so far been mostly limited to rural and isolated areas. Nevertheless, urban areas are the most important potential market for small wind turbines, as 80% of the European population lives in cities and the EU Directive 2010/31/EU on Energy Performance of Buildings requires that all new buildings are zero-energy buildings by 2020. This is an excellent opportunity for SMEs in the supply chain of small wind turbines.

However, the different technical challenges for this type of wind turbines need to be tackled first, as the low wind speed and turbulent flows make the achievement of wind energy cost effectiveness more difficult in urban areas.

WINDUR wants to develop a prototype which is cost efficient and can thus be used in urban areas. This prototype would be a small vertical axis wind turbine optimized for use in urban environments as a roof-top mounted system.

The optimizations are:

A new control strategy for the rapidly changing wind speeds to maximize the energy production
An aerodynamic design which reduces the weight of the turbine, the installation complexity and the costs
An assessment of wind resources in urban areas, to enable the selection of the best locations

WINDUR has a targeted performance of 0.35kWh/€ at an annual average wind speed of 6.5 m/s for guaranteeing a Return on Investment period shorter than 15 years.

Moreover, WINDUR wants to develop solutions to give European SMEs a competitive advantage for the development of small wind turbines. The consortium WINDUR consists of SMEs specialized in wind turbines (in both components and installation) and different research institutions with an elaborate expertise on wind technology.

Further information

WINDUR is financed by FP7 – Research for SMEs from the European Commission for the period November 2013 – October 2015.

Budget: 1,15 M€

More information on WINDUR is available on the project website: http://www.project-windur.eu.

FP7

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Further information