Active Aerodynamic Load Control for Improved Wind Turbine Design

Historically, cost reduction in wind energy has been accomplished by increasing hub heights and rotor diameters to capture more energy per turbine. However, larger wind turbines cannot be expected to lead to lower LCOE without the addition of new technologies. Capital costs grow rapidly with rotor diameter, faster than the rated power, because as rotor diameter increases, the blades get heavier and more costly. The growth in blade mass with blade length is accelerated by the additional structure that must be added to withstand unsteady aerodynamic loads caused by turbulence, gusts, wind shear, misaligned yaw, upwind wakes, and the tower shadow. This paper presents a holistic design solution to integrate active load control via dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma actuators into wind turbine rotors along with initial findings on load reduction, actuator development, and rotor mass reduction.