Green Energy

Wind energy is one of the fastest growing renewable energy sources in the world. Installed wind energy is 74.5 GW at the end of 2015, almost thirty-fold increase from 2000 where the installed wind energy is only 2.5 GW. However, most of these installed wind energy is produced by large scale wind turbines that requires an averaged wind speed of about 12 to 15 5 m/s. That requirement put a limit on the opportunities for using wind energy in many areas and locations around the world. As a result, research studies on the low speed wind turbines that can operate effectively at wind speed of 5 to 6 m/s have become increasingly common. In addition, non-traditional methods of deploying wind turbines, for example, using them by the roadside to generate electricity, have been studied more recently. In this presentation, current state-of-the-art research on the low speed wind turbines will be presented. Based on these researches, future opportunities and challenges facing extensive deployment of low speed wind turbines will be explored and discussed.