Abstract
At cold climate sites, the icing of the turbine components, mainly the blades, affects the system's performance and safety due to the ice accretion and shedding. Consequently, the economic sustainability of wind turbine utilization in adverse climates needs some special requirements, such as anti-icing or de-icing equipment for the blades. This paper gives a numerical investigation of a new approach, consisting of cyclically de-icing the wind turbine blades by the intermittent warming of the surfaces. De-icing simulations were carried out for a MW-class rotor blade section. A parametric study investigated the sustainability and effectiveness of warm air de-icing systems, in terms of the heating cycle duration and the heating energy consumption.