Energy and exergy analyses of various wind turbine alternatives for a district

Renewable energy power stations are becoming more popular even though their electricity production cost is higher than fossil fuel-based energy power stations. The reason behind this fact is that renewable energy sources have the advantage of sustainability and they provide fuel diversity to countries. Turkey is among the lucky countries for renewable energy sources with high wind energy potential. Generally, this high wind potential is exploited using large scale wind turbines although the use of small-scale wind turbines also offers a suitable use potential. In the present study, two different cases were taken into consideration for the wind turbine installation for a residential district, which consisted of 20 detached houses in İzmir city of Turkey. In the first case, the installation of individual small-scale wind turbines of 5-kW capacity for each house was considered. A single wind turbine with a 100-kW capacity was evaluated in the second case to meet the electricity needs of all the houses. The total turbine capacity for both cases were kept identical in order to make a comparison in terms of annual energy production. In addition, exergy efficiency values of the selected wind turbines were analysed in detail. The results of the study revealed that although the annual electrical energy needs of the houses could be covered in both cases, the case in which a single 100-kW wind turbine was installed was advantageous both in energy generation and exergetic efficiency aspects. Under the light of these results, it was concluded that for small communities or districts, the use of a single wind turbine with an adequate capacity was better than the use of individual residential-scale wind turbines.