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Developing and testing wind turbine models at University North

The issues of environmental pollution and the increasing importance of renewable energy are indispensable topics in today's teaching, especially students in the STEM area. In addition to regular classes in related courses, students often choose topics related to renewable energy sources for individual work required for the final exam. Thereby, they are encouraged by mentors to create a scaled model on which they can perform measurements to test its effectiveness. At the same time, these models can be used as teaching tools in future work during regular teaching to relate theoretical explanations to laboratory experiments. One of the fastest growing uses of renewable energy in many countries is still wind energy. Today, there are different kinds of wind turbines that are used to produce electricity. This article describes the basic characteristics of the wind and the wind turbines, with their advantages and disadvantages as well as the relevant information about the development and application of wind farms. Furthermore, the wind turbine models with horizontal and vertical axis, which students designed as part of their final work, are described. Students of electrical engineering can independently design and test the applications of wind turbines, using these reduced scale models, during the laboratory exercises. Finally, different student experiences in laboratory of renewable energy sources at the University North are described and parameters measured at the different control speeds are presented. There is a remarkable increase of interest in electrical engineering students to engage in creative development of renewable energy applications when working with models made by their colleagues, in a simple and accessible way.

Renewable energy sources ; model ; teaching tools ; wind turbine

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