Abstract
Though Micro Wind Technology has several advantages but its expansion is very slow due to few significant limitations such as low efficiency of wind turbines and public concerns regarding safety in the turbine vicinity, noise and visual impact. To overcome the limitations of micro wind technology, a Rotor House (RH) for vertical axis wind turbine has been proposed in the literature. It has been claimed that the RH utilizes free stream wind parcel of the area nearly double than the swept area of rotor and amplify velocity magnitude in the rotor zone up to 1.52 times the value of free stream velocity. In the present study contribution of proposed RH in terms of increase in the performance of micro vertical axis wind turbine has been investigated experimentally. In this regard a conventional three bladed savonius rotor model and RH model with optimized design is manufactured and tested under laboratory conditions as well as in open air conditions (field testing). By creating venture effect, the RH accelerates wind flow in the rotor zone and concentrates the flow on the effective location of rotor blade located inside the structure. RH contributes to improve the power coefficient of rotor from 0.125 to 0.218. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.