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Betzs law indicates the maximum power that can be ex- 2 Three independent discoveries of
tracted from the wind, independent of the design of a
wind turbine in open ow. It was published in 1919, by the turbine eciency limit
the German physicist Albert Betz.[1] The law is derived
from the principles of conservation of mass and momen- The British scientist Frederick W. Lanchester derived the
tum of the air stream owing through an idealized actu- same maximum in 1915. The leader of the Russian aero-
ator disk that extracts energy from the wind stream. Ac- dynamic school, Nikolay Zhukowsky, also published the
cording to Betzs law, no turbine can capture more than same result for an ideal wind turbine in 1920, the same
16/27 (59.3%) of the kinetic energy in wind. The factor year as Betz did.[4] It is thus an example of Stiglers Law
16/27 (0.593) is known as Betzs coecient. Practical which states that statistically, no scientic discovery is
utility-scale wind turbines achieve at peak 75% to 80% named after its actual discoverer.
of the Betz limit.[2][3]
The Betz limit is based on an open disk actuator. If a
diuser is used to collect additional wind ow and di- 3 Economic relevance
rect it through the turbine, more energy can be extracted,
but the limit still applies to the cross-section of the entire
The Betz limit places an upper bound on the annual en-
structure.
ergy that can be extracted at a site. Even if a hypothet-
ical wind blew consistently for a full year, no more than
the Betz limit of the energy contained in that years wind
1 Concepts could be extracted. In practice, the annual capacity fac-
tor of a wind site varies around 25% to 60% of the energy
that could be generated with constant wind, limiting the
energy that can possibly be obtained even further to typ-
ically a range of 14.8% to 35% respectively.
Essentially increasing system economic eciency results
from increased production per unit, measured per square
meter of vane exposure. An increase in system eciency
is required to bring down the cost of electrical power
production measured in kWh. Eciency increases may
be the result of engineering of the wind capture devices,
such as the conguration and dynamics of wind turbines,
that may push the power generation from these systems
Simple cartoon of two air molecules shows why wind turbines into higher levels of the Betz limit. System eciency in-
cannot actually run at 100% eciency. creases in power application, transmission or storage may
1
2 4 PROOF
also contribute to a lower cost of power per unit. The force exerted on the wind by the rotor may be written
In practicality, most systems do not reach a performance as
rate of even 50% of the Betz limit, before the further lim-
its of the air stream are ever considered, further lowering
F = ma
the typical rates to 7-17%. Some have claimed to ap-
proach the Betz constant and even to surpass it, but none dv
have proven to do so.[5][6] =m
dt
=m
v
4 Proof = Sv(v1 v2 )
The Betz Limit shows the maximum possible energy that or in words, the mass multiplied by the acceleration, so we
may be derived by means of an innitely thin rotor from calculate the air density times the area and speed for the
a uid owing at a certain speed.[7] mass and multiply that by the dierence in wind speeds
before and after for the acceleration.
In order to calculate the maximum theoretical eciency
of a thin rotor (of, for example, a windmill) one imagines
it to be replaced by a disc that withdraws energy from the 4.3 Power and work
uid passing through it. At a certain distance behind this
disc the uid that has passed through ows with a reduced The work done by the force may be written incrementally
velocity.[7] as
4.1 Assumptions dE = F dx
1. The rotor does not possess a hub and is ideal, with and the power (rate of work done) of the wind is
an innite number of blades which have no drag. Any
resulting drag would only lower this idealized value.
2. The ow into and out of the rotor is axial. This is a P = dt = F dt = F v
dE dx
m
= A1 v1 = Sv = A2 v2 Looking back at the continuity equation, a substitution for
the mass ow rate yields the following
where v1 is the speed in the front of the rotor and v2 is
the speed downstream of the rotor, and v is the speed at
the uid power device. is the uid density, and the area
of the turbine is given by S and A1 and A2 are the area P = 2 S v (v1 v2 )
1 2 2
of the uid before and after reaching the turbine. Both of these expressions for power are completely valid,
So the density times the area and speed should be equal one was derived by examining the incremental work done
in each of the three regions, before, while going through and the other by the conservation of energy. Equating
the turbine and afterwards. these two expressions yields
3
P = 1
2 S v (v12 v22 ) = S v 2 (v1 v2 )
1
2 (v12 v22 ) = 1
2 (v1 v2 ) (v1 + v2 ) = v (v1 v2 )
or
v= 1
2 (v1 + v2 )
The horizontal axis reects the ratio v2 / v1 , the vertical axis is the
Therefore, the wind velocity at the rotor may be taken as power coecient " Cp.
the average of the upstream and downstream velocities.
(This is arguably the most counter-intuitive stage of the
derivation of Betz' law.) The reference power for the Betz eciency calculation
is the power in a moving uid in a cylinder with cross
sectional area S and velocity v1 :
5 Betz' law and coecient of per-
formance Pwind = 1
2 S v13 .
The power coecient[8] " C (= P/P ) has a maximum
Returning to the previous expression for power based on value of: C . = 16/27 = 0.593 (or 59.3%; however, co-
kinetic energy: ecients of performance are usually expressed as a dec-
imal, not a percentage).
( ) Modern large wind turbines achieve peak values for C in
E = 12 m v12 v22
the range of 0.45 to 0.50,[2] about 75% to 85% of the the-
oretically possible maximum. In high wind speed where
the turbine is operating at its rated power the turbine ro-
( 2 )
= 2 S v v1 v2
1 2 tates (pitches) its blades to lower C to protect itself from
damage. The power in the wind increases by a factor of 8
from 12.5 to 25 m/s, so Cp must fall accordingly, getting
as low as 0.06 for winds of 25 m/s.
( )
= 14 S (v1 + v2 ) v12 v22
7 Points of interest [3] Tony Burton et al., (ed), Wind Energy Handbook, John
Wiley and Sons 2001 ISBN 0471489972 page 65
The Betz limit has no dependence on the geometry of the [4] Gijs A.M. van Kuik, The LanchesterBetzJoukowsky
wind extraction system, therefore S may take any form Limit Archived June 9, 2011, at the Wayback Machine.,
provided that the ow travels from the entrance to the Wind Energ. 2007; 10:289291
control volume to the exit, and the control volume has [5] Wind Power Fraud, Charles Opalek ISBN 978-0-557-
uniform entry and exit velocities. Any extraneous eects 48328-0 page 66
can only decrease the performance of the system (usually
a turbine) since this analysis was idealized to disregard [6] Dodgy wind? Why innovative turbines are often any-
friction. Any non-ideal eects would detract from the en- thing but Mike Barnard, Gizmag online magazine, June
ergy available in the incoming uid, lowering the overall 4, 2013
eciency. [7] Manwell, J. F.; McGowan, J. G.; Rogers, A. L. (Febru-
Some manufacturers and inventors have made claims of ary 2012). Wind Energy Explained: Theory, Design and
Application. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: John Wiley &
exceeding the Betz' limit by using nozzles and other wind
Sons Ltd. pp. 9296. ISBN 9780470015001.
diversion devices, usually by misrepresenting the Betz
limit and calculating only the rotor area and not the to- [8] Danish Wind Industry Association Archived October
tal input of air contributing to the wind energy extracted 31, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
from the system.
[9] White, F.M., Fluid Mechanics, 2nd Edition, 1988,
McGraw-Hill, Singapore
10 External links
9 References
The Betz limit - and the maximum eciency for
horizontal axis wind turbines
[1] Betz, A. (1966) Introduction to the Theory of Flow Ma-
chines. (D. G. Randall, Trans.) Oxford: Pergamon Press. Pierre Lecanu, Joel Breard, Dominique Mouaz.
Betz limit applied to vertical axis wind turbine the-
[2] Enercon E-family, 330 Kw to 7.5 Mw, Wind Turbine ory
Specication
5
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