Performance Analysis of Diffuser Augmented Wind Turbine/Battery-Hybrid Energy System

Low powered wind energy conversion system (WECS) is not much used in domestic electrification as the wind is intermittent in nature, and the cut-in speed of a typical wind turbine is about 3.4 m/s or more. Hence, a diffuser mechanism is used to amplify the input wind velocity. This paper investigates the performance of a 100 W Diffuser Augmented Wind Turbine (DAWT)/battery hybrid energy system (HES). The proposed WECS consists of a diffuser, a six-bladed wind turbine, and a 24 V permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG). The diffuser accelerates the incoming wind speed by about 23%, before hitting the turbine blades. Thus, the performance of the proposed WECS is improved. The WECS is connected to a 48 V DC microgrid through a boost converter. A 12 V, 50 Ah battery is used as a storage device in the HES, and it is connected with the same microgrid through a bidirectional dc-dc converter. A controller is designed for the boost converter to extract the maximum power from the WECS. The switching frequency of the converter is considered as 20 kHz. The performance evaluation of the HES is conducted through MATLAB/ Simulink® software platform, and the results are presented.