SMALL WIND TURBINES A FEASIBLE SOLUTION FOR RURAL/REMOTE AREAS

Energy is needed for any activity and key driver to improve the life cycle. The primary source of energy is fossil fuel and is depleting in nature at faster rate. This fact suggests that attention is to be turned towards alternate energy sources like non-conventional, renewable and environment friendly energy resources. Decentralized electricity generation with non conventional energy sources such as small wind, hydro, solar, biomass, bio-fuels and energy from waste are best suited to provide the much needed energy options. Of the renewable sources two sources stand out as more promising and are solar and wind. Grid expansion is needed to provide electricity access to rural/remote areas but is suffering from lack of infrastructure. Wind can be used especially in the rural and remote areas in standalone mode to meet the requirements of the single households or small community. This paper presents the scenario of wind energy in general and suitability of small wind turbines for house hold, small commercial and agricultural sectors in particular. This is demonstrated by simulation of small wind turbines and the simulation results validates the proposal of deploying small wind turbines to meet the energy requirements to become self reliant.