Rooftop siting of a small wind turbine using a hybrid BEM-CFD model

The benefits of wind turbine rooftop installations are related to the exploitation both of a higher elevation within the atmospheric boundary layer and of possible local accelerated flows originated by the interaction between the wind and the surrounding landscape. The selection of the proper turbine positioning is however pivotal to ensure maximized energy yields. Although the complete solution of the flow field surrounding the rotors would lead to most accurate results, lower-fidelity models with a more affordable computational cost are still about to be preferable for multivariate optimization analyses. In this study, a set of simulations using a hybrid BEM-CFD model were carried out to optimize the siting of a small HAWT in the rooftop of a suburban building. The parametric study on the urban landscape and the turbine positioning showed that the proposed approach hybrid approach provides interesting prospects in view of more energy-efficient urban installations of wind turbines.