Design and Simulation of a Wind-Powered Air-Conditioning System for Vehicles

The growing push for sustainable automotive solutions has motivated the replacement of conventional engine-driven air-conditioning (AC) systems with renewable energy alternatives. This paper presents the design and simulation of a wind-powered AC system for vehicles, integrating a horizontal-axis wind turbine and power electronics to supply a standard vehicle AC unit. The methodology centers on a PSIM simulation model that couples a mini wind turbine (driving an alternator) with DC–DC converters (a boost converter stepping 12 V up to 200 V, and a buck converter stepping 200 V back down to 12 V). Using the turbine power formula (P = 0.5 Cp ρ π R2 V 3 ) as a design guide, the system is tuned to achieve approximately 12 V, 60 A DC output sufficient to power a typical car’s electrical and AC load. Simulation results demonstrate the feasibility of reaching the target voltage and current: the boost converter produces 200 V DC at 20 A, and the buck converter yields 12 V at 60 A. These results correspond to an estimated turbine output on the order of a few watts under moderate wind (6 m/s), highlighting the need for optimized turbine design and minimal losses. Nonetheless, the study affirms that a wind-energy-driven AC is conceptually viable for on-road use, with the potential to reduce fuel consumption and emissions. This work implies that wind-powered vehicle AC systems could enhance sustainable automotive engineering by harnessing on-the-move wind to provide cooling, independent of the engine. The paper concludes with discussions on system efficiency, implementation challenges, and directions for future work including physical prototyping for real-world validation.