Urban wind energy consists of the utilization of wind energy technology in applications to the urban and suburban built environment. The paper provides some views on the progress made recently in the areas of wind resource assessment in the urban habitat; the utilization of suitable wind turbines for enhancing the exploitation of these resources; and the significant role of knowledge of building and urban aerodynamics for an optimal arrangement of interfacing augmented wind with its extraction mechanisms. The paper is not intended to be exhaustive, rather its purpose is to provide some views on the above-mentioned topics from the viewpoint of wind engineering and industrial aerodynamics in the context of buildings and cities.

Current wind codes and standards have load provisions dealing with low buildings of common configurations. Large buildings, say 100 m long, had not been considered when these provisions were established. As a result, the interaction between wind and buildings of such geometries should be investigated for the assessment of current wind provisions in terms of their applicability to such configurations. The present wind tunnel study examines nine large low-rise buildings 5, 7.5 and 10 m high for several wind directions ranging from 0° to 90° at increments of 15°. The buildings have square plans with full-scale horizontal dimensions ranging from 60 to 180 m. Results show that building plan sizes have significant effects on the generated wind loads on building roofs. Also, application of current provisions on building geometries of large roofs and low height may lead to considerably conservative and uneconomic design. An exception for very large low buildings, as far as the determination of the sizes of roof edge and corner zones is concerned, has been recommended to rectify the deficiency of wind code and standard provisions for these building geometries.

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