Study on influence of blade icing on operational characteristics of wind turbine at cold climate

Abstract

Abstract In this paper, the icing effect on wind turbine is investigated. The sectional aerodynamic performance of iced blade was measured in wind tunnel with icing airfoil models. The analysis conducted by using FAST using the measured sectional performance was conducted to investigate the degradation in wind turbine performance and added load due to icing. Frequency analysis was also conducted with the time series data calculated by using FAST. As the results, the power output at the rated wind speed for the icing case is smaller than that for the clean case and the maximum rotor thrust for the icing case is smaller than the clean case. The wind speed at which the turbine’s rated power is reached for the icing case was higher than that for the clean case.