Research, Design, Development & Demonstration (RD3) of a Wind Solar Hybrid (WiSH) System

Wind energy related activities had been initiated at NAL by the first director Dr P Nilakantan in 1959 and later valuable contributions were made through the wind resource assessment leading to the discovery of major windy sites in the southern India during the 70’s energy crisis. In the past few years, NAL had ventured into the design and development of wind turbines in order to create the indigenous technology base within the country. With its rich multi-disciplinary experience in the niche area of design of aircraft wings and helicopter rotors, an indigenous development of a 500 W wind turbine rotor for low wind conditions was taken up and successfully completed. However, to address the energy needs of remote areas in the country, it was realized that a hybrid concept tapping the wind and solar resources would be ideal and hence the development of a Wind-Solar Hybrid (WiSH) system was initiated at CSMST, NAL. This developmental work was multi-disciplinary in nature involving domains of aerodynamics, structural dynamics, electrical & controls and composite fabrication technology. The challenges of integrating the two devices (wind turbine and the solar PV panels) were addressed and the necessary hardware was developed with support from the local vendors. Yet another notable aspect of the hybrid system development was that under a PPP model, the industrial partner M/s. Aparna Renewable Energy Sources (P) Ltd. (ARES), Bengaluru, was involved in this effort right from day one, to facilitate the post development production and marketing of the product. The present paper highlights the key challenges in Research, Design, Development and Demonstration (RD3) of the WiSH system. It elucidates how NAL translated high end aerospace technologies into applications in the renewable energy sector & designed an India-specific low wind regime wind turbine, hybridized it with the Solar PV panels and demonstrated the WiSH system along with ARES – a local MSME.