Experimental performance evaluation of 500W mini wind mill

Wind energy has proven a best alternative to fossil fuel based energy and is environmental friendly also. In India, a small family of having 4/5 persons consumes about 1.5 Kw electricity per day. Hence there is a huge potential for mini wind mills & necessity of developing horizontal axis wind turbine machine of capacity of 200 watts to 1500 watts, which can run on average wind velocity of 2 to 3 m/s. Authors has made an attempt to resolve this problem. This paper deals with the design, manufacture and testing of HAWM of 500 W for performance evaluation for domestic application. The rotor blades are aerodynamically designed and are made up of FRP weighing 500 gm. each. The Permanent Magnet Generator is having 16 poles. The machine is dynamically balanced before fitting on pole at roof top for testing. During performance evaluation it is observed that the machine runs on 2.7 m/s, against the design cut in wind speed of 3.5 m/s. During field experiments, it has been observed that, small horizontal axis wind turbine reached maximum 957 RPM and developed 19.2 amperes current during the continuous testing period of 180 hours as per code of standards. This prototype has potential for commercializing the product for domestic application.