Exchange: Wind Water Pumping Systems

Ensuring an adequate supply of water is a major concern in many rural contexts. Pumping water from underground, from rivers or other reservoirs is often part of a water supply solution. Some members of Wind Empowerment have been developing and testing simple but appropriate water pumping options using small wind turbines.

So far, two types of system have emerged: a) direct coupling, which consists of directly driving a three-phase pump motor from the three-phase current generated by the small wind turbine; and b) by using converters, which involves regulating the current from the turbine generator according to the pump’s load demand.

The central aim of this exchange is to capitalise on the already available knowledge and on the diverse skills of the Wind Empowerment network in order to create a versatile and robust product suitable for meeting the challenges of off-grid pumping. To achieve this aim, an international and interdisciplinary group of Wind Empowerment members will engage in a research and development process in which the current designs will be improved, prototyped and tested.