The design and testing of a small-scale wind turbine fitted to the ventilation fan for a livestock building

Small-scale wind power generation is at present not promising in Korea because of low-speed and unstable natural wind conditions. A wind turbine, which uses artificial and high-speed wind created at the ventilation fan of a livestock building, is proposed as an alternative to conventional approaches. The new blades developed in this study were designed with blade element momentum (BEM) method and optimized on the complex airflow of the ventilation fan. A three-phase alternating current permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG), tower, power converter and additional accessories were designed and used to build a wind power system. The wind power system was finally installed on a broiler house and tested by AC load tester. As a result of the evaluation, the new blades of 1.54 m in diameter showed 350 W of electricity output, while the system produced 300 W of electricity because of the electricity loss during the power conversion process. Considering the ventilation fan emits 1 kW of energy, the wind power system recovered 30% of its energy and converted it into usable energy. The load imposed on the existing ventilation system during the generation process, such as loss of ventilation flow rate and increase of electricity consumption, was also investigated. There was only a 1.5% ventilation rate reduction and therefore it can be concluded that there was almost no additional load on the existing ventilation fan operation suggesting economic assistance for those who are suffering from increased energy costs in the livestock farming industry.