The aim of this lecture course (6 ECTS) is that students understand the physical principles of wind energy and the technology of modern wind energy systems. It consists of lectures and exercises, and is given by Prof. Dr. Moritz Diehl and Nick Harder.

Contents: 

• global wind energy resource
• aerodynamic principles of wind turbines
• design of modern wind turbines
• control of modern wind turbines
• the electrical system of wind turbines
• alternative concepts and airborne wind energy

When/Where

Due to Corona regulations the lectures and the exercises will take place online (at least until the mid of June) using Zoom Platform. 

The first lecture will be held on 12.05.2020 (Tuesday).

The course will be held on:

• Tuesdays 12:30 - 14:00h
• Wednesdays 12:15 - 14:00h

Please, use the following link to access the class for both lectures and exercise sessions. Password: 5BCxhi3Xm

The lectures will be recorded and posted on this webpage.

Course Information

The Wind Energy Systems (WES) course has two modes of instruction: lectures and  exercises. The lectures are given by Moritz Diehl. One biweekly time-slot is dedicated to an 'exercise session' that will be coordinated by Nick Harder (nick.harder@inatech.uni-freiburg.de). 

The exercise sessions are held on a biweekly basis. First exercise sheet will be provided on 20.05 after the lecture. One week after you receive the exercise sheet a video recording of the exercise solution will be posted on this webpage, and another week later an online exercise session will take place, where you can ask questions to the previous exercise sheet and a new exercise sheet will be provided. The exact schedule can be found below.

The grade for the course corresponds to the grade of the final exam. This final exam is 'closed-book,' which means that ONLY pens, a calculator, and one A4 page (that is, two sides) of notes can be used. The questions will be partially multiple-choice and partially short-answer.

Lectures

Exercises

Special Events

• Invited Talk on Industrial Practice of Wind Energy Converter Control. Tuesday, June 23, 2020, 12:30. For more information, follow this link.

• The tour to the wind turbines on Rosskopf will take place on July 10 afternoon. All information can be found on https://www.syscop.de/event/walk-rosskopf-wind-turbine

Resources

Wind Energy Handbook is available here

Wind Energy Explained: Theory, Design and Application is available here

!!! The updated lectures script can be found here !!!

This course was also held in SS2018, all the materials from that course are available here.

Links of interest

2020-05-12 Report on renewable power generation costs in 2018 (by IRENA) (PDF)

2020-05-19 Which way a wind turbine turns might not seem to matter (by the Economist) (screenshot)

2020-05-19 Atmospheric circulation patterns (from wikipedia)

2020-05-26 Article on the Global Energy Transition (by the Economist)

2020-06-02 Albert Betz: Wind-Energie. Cover, Turbine Illustrations, Concluding Sentence