Wind Energy Production from Vertical Axis Wind Turbine on Offshore Production Platforms in Trinidad

Aims: To estimate the available power that can be generated from wind on Oil and Gas production Platforms offshore Trinidad.

Place and Duration of Study: Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus. Data collected at a bpTT production platform offshore east coast Trinidad between January 2019 to November 2019.

Methodology: The East coast of Trinidad was chosen due to the presence of high yearly wind speeds. The wind data was collected 80 kilometers off Trinidad Southeast coast, east of the bpTT Cashima production platform for the year 2019. Wind speeds varied from 5.3 meters per second in October to 8.8 meters per second in June. The overall wind speed average for the year 2019 was 7.4 meters per second. The vertical axis wind turbine considered here was modeled using Parashivoiu's double multiple streamtube model concept. The VAWT modelled had 3 NACA0018 blade profile, a blade length of 2.5 meters and a diameter of 2 meters.

Results: The modeled vertical axis wind turbine monthly total power output varied from 5.43 KW to 20.34 KW. The daily average expected power output from the VAWT ranged from 175 Watts to 678 Watts. It can be observed that the months January to July gave higher daily and monthly average power generation due to these months having the highest wind speeds due to local weather conditions.

Conclusion: The VAWT modelled in this study can generate on average, 463 Watts of power per day with a peak average of 678 Watts of power per day in June from a single turbine. The total average power produced for the year 2019 was 151.11 KW. The turbine was sized as not to have a large footprint on the offshore platform. It is demonstrated here that substantial support and rationale is needed for the potential advancement of VAWT’s for conditions that prevail offshore Trinidad, owing to their lower extraction costs and more robust geometry due to the use of existing offshore platforms.