**Author details**

Multiplying the generator's power times the wind speed probability at each wind speed, we can derive the normalized power production curves of figure 16. Peak power probability for this data set is at 3m/s, with a lower peak in the power probability curve at 4.5m/s. As the wind speed at the test site never exceeded 7m/s for any significant amount of time the opti‐ mized turbine is shown to generate 3 to 4 times more power than the commercial turbines over the whole available wind speed range. There is a dip in the wind probability data at around 4m/s in the data over the period sampled due to the limited amount of data. In gen‐ eral we would expect a fairly smooth wind probability profile with a peak between 3.5 and

Power production in a 5 m/s wind is expected to be around 350W, and in a region produc‐ ing this wind for 4.8 hours of production per day, should result in 1.68 kWh of energy pro‐ duction per day. Assuming storage losses of 30% associated with charge/discharge of batteries and power transmission this will result in about 1.2kWh of usable energy per day, close to our initial estimate of 1.3kWh per day required for a rural dwelling. Thus it is ex‐ pected that a purpose designed 2.25m radius wind turbine of relatively simple construction

Most commercial turbines are designed for relatively high wind speeds, around 10m/s, pro‐ duce insignificant amounts of power below 5m/s. Taking a conventional axial flux, direct drive horizontal axis 3-blade wind turbine as the starting point we were able to optimize the turbine and generator for lower wind speed operation and achieve a significantly higher power output than existing commercial turbines at lower wind speeds. Further optimization of the turbine is possible and should focus on airfoil shape, blade weight and construction

4.5m/s at this wind site.

282 Advances in Wind Power

**7. Conclusion**

**Figure 16.** Comparison of normalize wind power for various wind turbines

is sufficient to power a single rural dwelling in the windier parts of SEA.

Horizon Gitano-Briggs\*

Address all correspondence to: horizonusm@yahoo.com

University Kuala Lumpur – MSI, Malaysia
