Wind Power

There are various sources of power and there are very few that are renewable but then the use of energy has increased manifold and consequently the demand. Therefore we need some such sources of energy that are renewable so that we can cope with the imminent energy crisis that is coming. Wind energy, solar energy and Hydropower are examples of renewable energy, which can be recycled and reused again and again. These power sources do not create pollution neither is there a scope of these energy sources of being exhausted. We would discuss Wind power as a renewable source of energy, its advantages and disadvantages. Wind Power Suns rays heat the atmosphere of the earth in different degrees. There are parts of the earth that get more heat, consequently the air in those parts also gets warm and rises whereas in the other places which do not get enough heat, the air remains cold and remains close to the surface. But that one section of air, which is heated and rises, creates a void and the cold air blows to fill in the vacuum. This creates the movement of air and that is what we called wind. Now when this wind is used to get power it is called wind power. Wind power was used in the earlier times as well with the means of windmills though to get mechanical job done and not to produce electrical energy. Method of Wind power Production The energy of wind is converted to wind power with the help of turbines, which rotate as the wind blows and the rotation of the turbine produce power, which is distributed through the grid that is connected to the turbine. A turbine in average utilizes approximately 59% of the wind that passes through it but the placement of turbine is very important. It has to be kept in mind that there should be scope for transmission lines and the environmental factors since these would have a direct impact on the whole project of power generation. These are the important pointers apart from wind availability and cost of land, which are to be considered. Advantages and Disadvantages of Wind Power As stated earlier Wind power generation does not involve pollution and this power source is also renewable, but apart from these there are some more advantages of Wind Power, which are as follows:

Wind is easily available in all parts of the world and can become a cheap source of power for developing countries that face the crisis of power on large scale. It is natures endowment therefore is available free of cost. Wind Turbines do not consume additional power for power generation.

The turbines do not take much space and therefore are very convenient to install. They are also available in various models and potentials. As their potentials differ they are useful for all kinds of industries. The disadvantages of Wind Power are few in comparison to the advantages. The one disadvantage that makes it a less used and reliable source of energy is its varying strength. It is not same all the time and therefore the amount of power generated can vary. The turbines at times produce a lot of noise and there have been objections to the fact that the wind farms are being established in the countryside which is spoiling the scenic beauty.

There are advantages as well as disadvantages but it is better to improve the technology and get away with all the disadvantages because that would be a wise move towards a cleaner atmosphere.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Wind Energy

With the rising costs of traditional energy, alternate sources of energy are being looked into. Wind Energy is one such alternative source of energy. Here are some pros and cons of Wind Energy. The conversion of wind energy to various other useful forms, like electricity, is known as wind power. Wind energy is converted into these forms using wind turbines. Wind energy can be converted into electrical energy by the use of a electrical generator. The first use of wind energy was through wind mills. Wind mills had engines which used to produce energy using wind. This energy was usually used in rural and agricultural areas for grinding, pumping, hammering and various farm needs. Even today, wind energy is used in large scale wind farms to provide electricity to rural areas and other far reaching locations. Wind energy is being used extensively in areas like Denmark, Germany, Spain, India and in some areas of the United States of America. It is one of the largest forms of Green Energy used in the world today. Wind Energy is highly practical in places where the wind speed is 10 mph. Advantages One of the greatest advantages of Wind Energy is that it is ample. Secondly, wind energy is renewable. Some other advantages of Wind Energy are that it is widely distributed, cheap, and also reducing toxic gas emissions. Wind Energy is also advantageous over traditional

methods of creating energy, in the sense that it is getting cheaper and cheaper to produce wind energy. Wind Energy may soon be the cheapest way to produce energy on a large scale. The cost of producing wind energy has come down by at least eighty percent since the eighties. Along with economy, Wind Energy is also said to diminish the greenhouse effect. Also, wind energy generates no pollution. Wind Energy is also a more permanent type of energy. The wind will exist till the time the sun exists, which is roughly another four billion years. Theoretically, if all the wind power available to humankind is harnessed, there can be ten times of energy we use, readily available. One other advantage of wind energy that it is readily available around the globe, and therefore there would be no need of dependence for energy for any country. Wind energy may be the answer to the globe's question of energy in the face of the rising petroleum and gas prices. Disadvantages However, there are some disadvantages for wind energy, which may put a dampener in its popularity. Though the costs of creating wind energy is going down, even today a large number of turbines have to be built to generate a proper amount of wind energy. Though wind power is non-polluting, the turbines may create a lot of noise, which indirectly contributes to noise pollution. Wind can never be predicted. Even the most advanced machinery may come out a cropper while predicting weather and wind conditions. Since wind energy will require knowledge of the weather and wind conditions on long term basis, it may be a bit impractical. Therefore, in areas where a large amount of wind energy is needed, one cannot depend completely on wind. Many potential wind farms, places where wind energy can be produced on a large scale, are far away from places for which wind energy is best suited. Therefore, the economical nature of wind energy may take a beating in terms of costs of new substations and transmission lines. Wind Energy is non-dispatchable. This may also put a spanner in depending upon wind power as a primary energy supplier. Wind energy depends upon the wind in an area and therefore is a variable source of energy. The amount of wind supplied to a place and the amount of energy produced from it will depend on various factors like wind speeds and the turbine characteristics. Some critics also wonder whether wind energy can be used in areas of high demand.

Advantages:

Wind energy is friendly to the surrounding environment, as no fossil fuels are burnt to generate electricity from wind energy. Wind turbines take up less space than the average power station. Windmills only have to occupy a few square meters for the base, this allows the land around the turbine to be used for many purposes, for example agriculture. Newer technologies are making the extraction of wind energy much more efficient. The wind is free, and we are able to cash in on this free source of energy. Wind turbines are a great resource to generate energy in remote locations, such as mountain communities and remote countryside. Wind turbines can be a range of different sizes in order to support varying population levels. Another advantage of wind energy is that when combined with solar electricity, this energy source is great for developed and developing countries to provide a steady, reliable supply of electricity.

Disadvantages:

The main disadvantage regarding wind power is down to the winds unreliability factor. In many areas, the winds strength is too low to support a wind turbine or wind farm, and this is where the use of solar power or geothermal power could be great alternatives. Wind turbines generally produce allot less electricity than the average fossil fuelled power station, requiring multiple wind turbines to be built in order to make an impact. Wind turbine construction can be very expensive and costly to surrounding wildlife during the build process. The noise pollution from commercial wind turbines is sometimes similar to a small jet engine. This is fine if you live miles away, where you will hardly notice the noise, but what if you live within a few hundred meters of a turbine? This is a major disadvantage. Protests and/or petitions usually confront any proposed wind farm development. People feel the countryside should be left in tact for everyone to enjoy it's beauty.

Wind power
Wind power is the conversion of wind energy into a useful form, such as electricity, using wind turbines. At the end of 2008, worldwide nameplate capacity of wind-powered generators was 121.2 gigawatts.[1] Wind power produces about 1.5% of worldwide electricity use,[1][2] and is growing rapidly, having doubled in the three years between 2005 and 2008. Several countries have achieved relatively high levels of wind power penetration, such as 19% of electricity production in Denmark, 11% in Spain and Portugal, and 7% in Germany and the Republic of Ireland in 2008. As of May 2009, eighty countries around the world are using wind power on a commercial basis.[2] Large scale wind farms are typically connected to the local electric power transmission network, with smaller turbines being used to provide electricity to isolated locations. Utility companies increasingly buy back surplus electricity produced by small domestic turbines. Wind energy as a power source is favored by many environmentalists as an alternative to fossil fuels, as it is plentiful, renewable, widely distributed, clean, and produces lower greenhouse gas emissions, although the construction of wind farms is not universally welcomed due to their visual impact and other effects on the environment. Wind power, along with solar power, is non-dispatchable, meaning that for economic operation all of the available output must be taken when it is available, and other resources, such as hydropower, must be used to match supply with demand. The intermittency of wind seldom creates problems when using wind power to supply a low proportion of total demand. Where wind is to be used for a moderate fraction of demand, additional costs for compensation of intermittency are considered to be modest.[3]

A wind turbine is a rotating machine which converts the kinetic energy in wind into mechanical energy. If the mechanical energy is used directly by machinery, such as a pump or grinding stones, the machine is usually called a windmill. If the mechanical energy is then converted to electricity, the machine is called a wind generator, wind turbine, wind power unit (WPU), wind energy converter (WEC), or aerogenerator. This article discusses electric power generation machinery. The Windmill article discusses machines used for grain-grinding, water pumping, etc. The article on wind power describes turbine placement, economics and public concerns. The wind energy section of that article describes the distribution of wind energy over time, and how that affects wind-turbine design.

Wind energy
The Earth is unevenly heated by the sun resulting in the poles receiving less energy from the sun than the equator does. Also, the dry land heats up (and cools down) more quickly than the seas do. The differential heating drives a global atmospheric convection system reaching from the Earth's surface to the stratosphere which acts as a virtual ceiling. Most of the energy stored in these wind movements can be found at high altitudes where continuous wind speeds of over 160 km/h (100 mph) occur. Eventually, the wind energy is converted through friction into diffuse heat throughout the Earth's surface and the atmosphere. The total amount of economically extractable power available from the wind is considerably more than present human power use from all sources.[11] An estimated 72 TW of wind power on the Earth potentially can be commercially viable,[12] compared to about 15 TW average global power consumption from all sources in 2005. Not all the energy of the wind flowing past a given point can be recovered (see Betz' law).

Distribution of wind speed

The strength of wind varies, and an average value for a given location does not alone indicate the amount of energy a wind turbine could produce there. To assess the frequency of wind speeds at a particular location, a probability distribution function is often fit to the observed data. Different locations will have different wind speed distributions. The Weibull model closely mirrors the actual distribution of hourly wind speeds at many locations. The Weibull factor is often close to 2 and therefore a Rayleigh distribution can be used as a less accurate, but simpler model. Because so much power is generated by higher wind speed, much of the energy comes in short bursts. The 2002 Lee Ranch sample is telling;[13] half of the energy available arrived in just 15% of the operating time. The consequence is that wind energy from a particular turbine or wind farm does not have as consistent an output as fuel-fired power plants; utilities that use wind power provide power from starting existing generation for times when the wind is weak thus wind power is primarily a fuel saver rather than a capacity saver. Making wind power more consistent requires that various existing technologies and methods be extended, in particular the use of stronger inter-regional transmission to link widely distributed wind farms, since the average variability is much less; the use of hydro storage and demand-side energy management.[14] Wind power density (WPD) is a calculation relating to the effective force of the wind at a particular location, frequently expressed in terms of the elevation above ground level over a period of time. It further takes into account wind velocity and mass. Color coded maps are frequently prepared for a particular area, described for example as "Mean Annual Power Density at 70 Meters." The results of the above calculation are used in an index developed by the National Renewable Energy Labs and referred to as "NREL CLASS." The larger the WPD calculation, the higher it is rated by class. Even though wind power is comparable in Texas and Kansas, there are about 10 times as many wind turbines in Texas as there are in Kansas. [15]

Tenaga angin menunjuk kepada pengumpulan energi yang berguna dari angin. Pada 2005, kapasitas generator tenaga-angin adalah 58.982 MW, hasil tersebut kurang dari 1% penggunaan listrik dunia. Meskipun masih berupa sumber energi listrik minor di kebanyakan negara, penghasilan tenaga angin lebih dari empat kali lipat antara 1999 dan 2005. Kebanyakan tenaga angin modern dihasilkan dalam bentuk listrik dengan mengubah rotasi dari pisau turbin menjadi arus listrik dengan menggunakan generator listrik. Pada kincir angin energi angin digunakan untuk memutar peralatan mekanik untuk melakukan kerja fisik, seperti menggiling "grain" atau memompa air. Tenaga angin digunakan dalam ladang angin skala besar untuk penghasilan listrik nasional dan juga dalam turbin individu kecil untuk menyediakan listrik di lokasi yang terisolir. Tenaga angin banyak jumlahnya, tidak habis-habis, tersebar luas, bersih, dan merendahkan efek rumah kaca.

How Wind Turbines Work

Wind is a form of solar energy. Winds are caused by the uneven heating of the atmosphere by the sun, the irregularities of the earth's surface, and rotation of the earth. Wind flow patterns are modified by the earth's terrain, bodies of water, and vegetation. Humans use this wind flow, or motion energy, for many purposes: sailing, flying a kite, and even generating electricity. The terms wind energy or wind power describe the process by which the wind is used to generate mechanical power or electricity. Wind turbines convert the kinetic energy in the wind into mechanical power. This mechanical power can be used for specific tasks (such as grinding grain or pumping water) or a generator can convert this mechanical power into electricity. So how do wind turbines make electricity? Simply stated, a wind turbine works the opposite of a fan. Instead of using electricity to make wind, like a fan, wind turbines use wind to make electricity. The wind turns the blades, which spin a shaft, which connects to a generator and makes electricity. Take a look inside a wind turbine to see the various parts. View the wind turbine animation to see how a wind turbine works. This aerial view of a wind power plant shows how a group of wind turbines can make electricity for the utility grid. The electricity is sent through transmission and distribution lines to homes, businesses, schools, and so on.

Learn more about wind energy technology:

Types of Wind Turbines Sizes of Wind Turbines Inside the Wind Turbine

Many wind farms have sprung up in the Midwest in recent years, generating power for utilities. Farmers benefit by receiving land lease payments from wind energy project developers.

Types of Wind Turbines

Modern wind turbines fall into two basic groups: the horizontal-axis variety, as shown in the photo, and the vertical-axis design, like the eggbeater-style Darrieus model, named after its French inventor. Horizontal-axis wind turbines typically either have two or three blades. These three-bladed wind turbines are operated "upwind," with the blades facing into the wind.

GE Wind Energy's 3.6 megawatt wind turbine is one of the largest prototypes ever erected. Larger wind turbines are more efficient and cost effective.

Sizes of Wind Turbines

Utility-scale turbines range in size from 100 kilowatts to as large as several megawatts. Larger turbines are grouped together into wind farms, which provide bulk power to the electrical grid. Single small turbines, below 100 kilowatts, are used for homes, telecommunications dishes, or water pumping. Small turbines are sometimes used in connection with diesel generators,

batteries, and photovoltaic systems. These systems are called hybrid wind systems and are typically used in remote, off-grid locations, where a connection to the utility grid is not available.

Inside the Wind Turbine

Anemometer: Measures the wind speed and transmits wind speed data to the controller. Blades: Most turbines have either two or three blades. Wind blowing over the blades causes the blades to "lift" and rotate. Brake: A disc brake, which can be applied mechanically, electrically, or hydraulically to stop the rotor in emergencies. Controller: The controller starts up the machine at wind speeds of about 8 to 16 miles per hour (mph) and shuts off the machine at about 55 mph. Turbines do not operate at wind speeds above about 55 mph because they might be damaged by the high winds. Gear box: Gears connect the low-speed shaft to the high-speed shaft and increase the rotational speeds from about 30 to 60 rotations per minute (rpm) to about 1000 to 1800 rpm, the rotational speed required by most generators to produce electricity. The gear box is a costly (and heavy) part of the wind turbine and engineers are exploring "direct-drive" generators that operate at lower rotational speeds and don't need gear boxes. Generator: Usually an off-the-shelf induction generator that produces 60-cycle AC electricity.

High-speed shaft: Drives the generator. Low-speed shaft: The rotor turns the low-speed shaft at about 30 to 60 rotations per minute. Nacelle: The nacelle sits atop the tower and contains the gear box, low- and high-speed shafts, generator, controller, and brake. Some nacelles are large enough for a helicopter to land on. Pitch: Blades are turned, or pitched, out of the wind to control the rotor speed and keep the rotor from turning in winds that are too high or too low to produce electricity. Rotor: The blades and the hub together are called the rotor. Tower: Towers are made from tubular steel (shown here), concrete, or steel lattice. Because wind speed increases with height, taller towers enable turbines to capture more energy and generate more electricity. Wind direction: This is an "upwind" turbine, so-called because it operates facing into the wind. Other turbines are designed to run "downwind," facing away from the wind. Wind vane: Measures wind direction and communicates with the yaw drive to orient the turbine properly with respect to the wind. Yaw drive: Upwind turbines face into the wind; the yaw drive is used to keep the rotor facing into the wind as the wind direction changes. Downwind turbines don't require a yaw drive, the wind blows the rotor downwind. Yaw motor: Powers the yaw drive.