Small-scale energy-generating systems are being increasingly integrated into built environment, and the use of renewable energies is now spreading to old towns in developing countries. Despite the promise of free energy, the high-tech appearance of the harnessing tools of renewables has provoked criticism because of the incompatibility with the cultural/environmental characteristics of older towns in Iran. This paper presents a new concept of novel hidden wind farms in the residential households of Iranian desert-edge towns with roof-mounted wind-arresters. The results of this study show that a hidden wind farm integrated into old towns with the potential of tourism can eliminate the concern over the visibility and bird collisions as well as the use of land. In the present study, the old city of Ardakan, Yazd, with an arid climate located at the edge of a desert in the center of Iran, is selected as target case study. Calculations show that the application of one small-scale wind turbine per wind-arrester across the town can generate approximately 2.90 GWh a year. Moreover, the proposed concept could also be applied in other countries such as Afghanistan, Egypt, Pakistan, Iraq, UAE and some African countries.
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