Design and the Operation Analysis of a Hybrid Solar Wind System for Sustainable Urban Energy

Sustainable urban energy is based on innovative solar and wind solutions. The paper presents such a hybrid solar-wind system, easy to place on building terraces, highlighting the advantages of this technical solution: energy production as close as possible to the consumers, elimination of system losses, small installation space. The system operates well in the low-speed range for the horizontal-axis crossflow wind turbine placed under a flexible solar panel, at speeds between 3-8 m/s, and exhibits good efficiency by cooling the photovoltaic panels. The prototype proposed by the paper is a small-scale model that can produce, on average 400 Wh/day and about 150 kWh/year. The paper analyzes numerically the aerodynamic behavior of the prototype at several wind speeds, as well as experimental results regarding the power and power coefficient for the wind turbine, as well as the power and efficiency of the flexible solar panel in the hybrid system.