Chicamocha canyon wind energy potential and vawt airfoil selection through CFD modeling

Large parts of the Colombian territory are not connected to the country’s electrical grid, evidencing the need for a more distributed power generation model. The use of vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT) could tackle this energy distribution problem. The present research experimentally analyzes the wind resource of a place known as Chicamocha’s canyon in Santander. Furthermore, once mean wind speed is determined, performance of two different airfoils (i.e. NACA0018 and DU06W200) under these wind conditions is assessed. The 2D CFD modeling is carried out in OpenFOAM using the “Spalart-Allmaras fv3” turbulence model. Aerodynamic airfoil behavior is evaluated in terms of global parameters such as lift and drag coefficients. This research shows the feasibility of using wind energy at the location studied where the average year density power is , and the airfoil DU06W200 is suggested to be used for constructing the blades of a VAWT as it develops 20% more lift than the commonly used NACA0018.