Challenges and strategies for increasing adoption of small wind turbines in urban areas

A student group at MIT in cooperation with the MIT Department of Facilities is currently working to install a Skystream 3.7 wind turbine on MIT's campus. This has raised several questions about how to best develop small wind projects in urban environments. The best wind resources in the country exist in relatively remote locations and require large investments in electricity transmission infrastructure to be effectively utilized. In the meantime, several large and small projects have been developed in the Boston area. The urban environment presents many challenges to development including the interaction of urban buildings with wind flow, concerns from neighbors and government over the aesthetics and safety of turbines that are installed near human populations, environmental effects including wildlife, noise, and shadows. There are also many opportunities including the ability to use net metering, little or no transmission infrastructure costs, and the ability to build on existing wind resource data and project assessments to develop a large number of installations. This document presents an overview of how the challenges of small wind turbine development in urban, suburban, and rural neighborhoods are currently being addressed by research in new and improved technology for turbines and siting, business strategies of existing companies, financing, and government policy. It looks at the strategy options available to businesses involved development of small wind turbines and evaluates the relative strengths and weaknesses of these strategies in a rapidly changing marketplace.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2010

Author dc:creator

• Ferrigno, Kevin J. (Kevin James)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Stephen R. Connors.

• Engineering Systems Division.
• System Design and Management Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/59240

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/59240