Experimental Tests in Equipping Vertical Axis Wind Turbines With Electric Generator

In this paper are presented experimental results obtained by equipping vertical axis wind turbine with electric generator. In the experiments were tested two ways of equipping the turbines, first with a generator connected directly to the rotor shaft and second with a generator, with less power, connected to the rotor shaft through a toothed wheel gear. To achieve these tests were used three types of vertical axis wind turbines, i.e. a single stage Savonius rotor, a double stage Savonius rotor and a single stage type ‘Z’ Savonius rotor.  After tests it was observed that the best solution for equipping wind turbines with electric generator is the one with the connection to the rotor shaft through a toothed wheel gear. In this case, even if the rotor speed values are closer to the first case, the voltage is much higher. At wind speed of 3 and 4 m/s, the single stage Savonius rotor generates more power than the other two. At wind speed of 5 m/s, the greatest amount of power was generated with the double stage Savonius rotor. Following these tests, it can be concluded that, in order to ensure the highest energy production, is recommended to use vertical axis wind turbine with double stage