Documentation for the design and fabrication of a 100W vertical axis wind turbine of the Derrius type
As the threat of global warming becomes more imminent, it is becoming clear that we have to shift our energy consumption from fossil fuels to renewables. Considering the growing world population and the trend towards industrialization especially in the global south, our energy demand are only going to increase in the coming years. Currently, a host of renewables showing potential include solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal, and hydro. In kenya, exploration of geothermal and hydro sources has intensified over the past with the two serving the largest potion of our energy supply. However, to meet this ever growing energy demand, we need to explore not only these two sources, but all the other renewable sources at our disposal.
Solar has provided access to electricity in the most remote areas of our continent and horizontal axis wind turbine farms have been installed at Turkana and Ngong. However, the wind power supply in the country remains largely untapped. While horizontal axis wind turbines are great for grid power supply, vertical axis offer off-grid solutions to power and can even support micro-grids. We decided to explore vertical axis wind turbines due to the fact that they are largely un-utilized in the country and continent at large and also because it was a challenging yet executable project.
The project primarily consists of three teams including:
- Aerodynamics
- Structural
- Control
Each team has its objectives that are spelled out in the respective folders.
To join the development under any of the teams, please sign up using the following google form and your team leader will reach out with the next steps.
Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for details on our code of conduct, and the process for submitting pull requests to us.
This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE.md file for details