Wind Power generation

I don't think this will work as well as might be hoped. The wind turbine will increase the static pressure faced by the exhaust blowers, causing them to consume more energy and/or decreasing the exhaust air flow.

The blowers are consuming power to create an artificial draft to drive out harmful gases from your work area.

If you feel the draft generated is more than what you need, the correct step will be to reduce the blower rpm ( speed ) to the required levels.

If the blowers are directly coupled to the motor shaft, a VVVF ( variable voltage variable frequency ) system can be thought of.

If the blowers are having a pulley drive, the reduction of rpm can be achieved by manipulating the pulley diameters.

By restricting the rpm, you will save much more energy than what can be generated through a wind turbine.

Anyway, wind turbines are not the ideal solution.

Rajan

There is no free lunch. The second law of thermodynamics will ensure that you spend more energy than you recover. If you feel that the exhaust velocity is too high, try to increase the area and reduce power to the blower.

Dear All, Thanks for your suggestion. But I think I have not explained you the complete system and might be all of you are not gone through the sketches provided by me. I am agree with that if the VFD is provided there will be a reduction in power consumption but the same time there will be reduction in CFM exhausted by the blower that is not permissible. Also I am agree with the comment that if the duct size is increased there will be a reduction in power consumption due to reduction in back pressure but due space limitation it is not possible. Further, I am thinking of installing the wind turbine at the inlet of the chimney where the avg. air velocity is 13 m/s ,not just in front of the blower. Thus it will not affect the power consumed by the blowers because the distance between nearest fan and chimney input is approx. 15 meter. So, Kindly think again on above point and suggest me a best solution.

Okay, I've thought about it some more, and here is my answer (read it slowly and carefully this time):

I don't think this will work as well as might be hoped. The wind turbine will increase the static pressure faced by the exhaust blowers, causing them to consume more energy and/or decreasing the exhaust air flow.

GA for the valiant effort in attempting to get him to understand that there is no free lunch.

I think we had a similar thread in here a few years ago in which someone tried to prove that they could recover energy in an air stream without affecting the power required to produce that air stream in the first place. It dragged on and on with the "real" engineers eventually dropping off in frustration while the quacks prattled on and on about how, if you moved the turbine far enough away from the outlet, it would no longer affect the static pressure and therefore the input power. Of course, we pointed out that at that point they would no longer move enough air through the turbine to generate electricity, but that didn't seem to faze them.

Suzlon India is the biggest manufacturer of wind power generators and wind power project designers and executers in India. They have their standard models. To the best of my experience the saving in terms of the energy generation from such a project when compared to the investment, it may not be a profitable .

Anything you use to remove or extract power from the gas exhaust will require you to add that much extra power to the exhaust machinery, no matter where it is placed, input or output it must get the power from somewhere, so it is a parasite on your process.

If you call companies that sell windpower, they will assure you it will work, they will take your $$ and install it. You will be a fool for their profit They will not return your money when it does not work, and you will be left to face the shame of doing a foolish thing that experienced engineers said would not work

If you are ready to sacrifice part your exhaust flow, you are better off installing lower power exhaust fans. The energy thus saved will be more than the energy you will generate by installing a wind turbine and reducing the exhaust flow, as correctly mentioned by Tornado.