Evaluation of small wind turbines for rural electrification: case studies from extreme climatic conditions in Venezuela

On-site technology performance evaluations are needed in tropical regions with extreme climatic conditions in order to reinforce electricity access programs based on renewable energy technologies (RET), particularly off-grid small wind technologies (SWT). This research aims to evaluate the technical performance and end-users’ acceptance of two SWT projects in Venezuelan communities located at different altitudes and with different weather conditions: a hot desert climate on the Caribbean coast and dry-winter climate in the Andean mountains. The technical performance is assessed through computer simulations to analyze the electricity demand and the wind resource. End-users’ acceptance is studied from in situ surveys and semi-structured interviews with all beneficiaries. Results show that the flat areas on the north coast have a low wind variability and high wind speeds, while in the mountainous areas the implementation of SWT is limited by the orography’s impact on wind variability. However, the social acceptance of SWT in both communities remains high given the existing relationship between load and production variations. This research was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (project RTI2018-097962-B-I00) and co-financed by Center for Cooperation Development (CCD) of the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya e BarcelonaTech (UPC). The authors are very grateful to the Serra Hunter fellowship program of the Generalitat de Catalunya. The work has been possible thanks to the technical collaboration of engineers Angel Lopez V., Leonardo López, G. from PDVSA (Maracaibo, Zulia) and the logistics support of Jack Marquez from PDVSA Industrial (Lagunillas, Mérida). The cooperation of the people from La Macolla (Falcon) and Los Conejos (Mérida) has been extremely important for data collection.