A Review of Darrieus Water Turbines

Population explosion and rapid industrialization demands increased power production, whereas, environmental concerns are also an issue. The need of time is to develop eco-friendly technology which exploits renewable energy resources. Water is one of the most promising and cheap renewable energy resource. The gross approximate potential of hydro is 128 PW h per year while technically exploitable potential is only 26 PW h per year. Darrieus water turbine (DWT) is like Darrieus wind turbine but it operates in water instead of air. It is an emerging technology for the low head regions. This article focuses on the performance of DWT under different designing parameters i.e. different blade profiles, pitch angle, azimuth angles, tip speed ratio and effect of ducts. It will also focus on the different numerical models used for its simulation. Finally, based on the study an optimum model is selected for practical operations.