Open Design and Local Manufacturing of Small Wind Turbines: Case Studies in Ethiopia and Nepal

During the last decade, the local manufacturing of small wind turbines is becoming an increasingly common approach in rural electrification applications, especially among international networks of renewable energy practitioners. As the number of locally manufactured small wind turbine installations is increasing on all continents, supply chain issues, material shortages or design issues in custom applications are becoming evident. In this paper the development of a series of open access design and analysis tools is presented, which allows the local manufacturer to redesign the small wind turbine according to available materials. In the two case studies, the design tools are used in the field by practitioners in order to overcome supply chain issues during the implementation and design phases of rural electrification projects in Ethiopia and Nepal.