MS#10.2 Distributed wind energy: challenges and opportunities

M. RUNACRES¹, F. CASTELLANI², D. PREZIUSO³
¹ Thermo and Fluid Dynamics (FLOW), Vrije Universiteit Brussel|² Department of Engineering, University of Perugia |³ Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, USA

Emerging technologies and special sessions

Distributed wind energy has much in common with utility-scale wind energy, but also faces a number of particular challenges. Smaller average size, lower number of installed turbines per project, considerable diversity of turbine designs, small production volumes and less than ideal inflow wind conditions all contribute to higher and less predictable life-cycle cost than utility-scale wind energy.

On the other hand, distributed wind energy has a huge potential to address near-term local clean energy needs through profitable deployment (McCabe et al, 2022, https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy22osti/82519.pdf).

Ongoing initiatives such as IEA Wind Task 41 (Enabling Wind to Contribute to a Distributed Energy Future) or the EAWE Small Wind technical committee are contributing to addressing the challenges faced by distributed wind and harness its potential.

The aim of the proposed mini symposium is to report and expand on these initiatives by bringing together experts from research and industry to discuss how recent research can be used to produce affordable, sustainable and reliable electricity from distributed wind energy. Topics that are likely to be discussed are inflow wind conditions, standards, making optimal use of available data, hybrid systems, assessment and modelling of turbine loads, as well as the human dimension of distributed wind energy.