The thesis analyzes the feasibility of power supply by small-scale wind turbines in urban, semi-urban and rural districts of Zimbabwe in order to understand if there is a potential existing for this technology.
Therefore, the wind potential is analyzed. To gain the required data regarding the wind speeds, a low-cost wind measurement station was developed and installed at three sites in Zimbabwe. Additionally to the measured data, wind data from local experts as well as GIS data is used to assess the local wind potential, which is found to be low for each of the three sites. Besides the wind potential, the feasibility of local manufacturing of small-scale wind turbines is analyzed. To do so, the availability and costs of necessary materials, skills and tools were investigated during visits of Zimbabwean schools, universities, workshops and informal markets. The Jesuit-led vocational school “St. Peters Kubatana Technology Centre” in Harare is found to offer optimal prerequesites for the realization of a pilot project.
Based on the previous analyses, the final objective is to identify the optimal technology for the power supply of the three research sites. Therefore, decentralized hybrid energy systems are modeled and optimized using the linear programming model urbs. It is found that the installation of a small-scale wind turbine is economically not feasible due to the low wind potential. Solar-Diesel-Battery hybrid systems are identified to be the optimal technology for the three sites.
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The thesis analyzes the feasibility of power supply by small-scale wind turbines in urban, semi-urban and rural districts of Zimbabwe in order to understand if there is a potential existing for this technology.
Therefore, the wind potential is analyzed. To gain the required data regarding the wind speeds, a low-cost wind measurement station was developed and installed at three sites in Zimbabwe. Additionally to the measured data, wind data from local experts as well as GIS data is used to ass...
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