Wind Farm: Converting Wind Energy to Electrical Energy Keywords: Wind energy, Wind power, Wind turbines, Wind

farm Wind power is the conversion of wind energy into a useful form of energy, such as using wind turbines to make electrical power, windmills for mechanical power, wind pumps for water pumping or drainage, or sails to propel ships. Wind power, as an alternative to fossil fuels, is plentiful, renewable, widely distributed, clean, produces no greenhouse gas emissions during operation and uses little land1. With the development of electric power, wind power found new applications in using wind turbines to make electrical power. Throughout 20th century, parallel paths developed small wind plants suitable for farms or residences, and larger utility-scale wind farms that could be connected to electricity grids for remote use of power. This photograph, taken by Donna Gehl, shows one of the larger utility-scale wind turbine farm on the San Gorgonio Mountain Pass in the San Bernadino Mountains. It contains more than 4000 separate wind turbines and provides about 893 gigawatt-hours of electricity to power Palm Springs and the entire Coachella Valley.

This photograph shows only a part of the farm that covers 5500 acres. In the foreground, a chunk of 4000 turbines, that consist of different brands, number of blades and sizes, are lined up in straight lines. Most of these turbines are made from start-of-the-art carbon fiber material, are light and consist of three blades rotor, as shown by the near five turbines. Background of this photo shows a portion of San Jacinto and San Bernardino Mountain Ranges that forms the Coachilla Valley. This valley between the mountains results in an acceleration of wind velocity to speeds suitable for wind energy development. The wide and open configuration of the San Gorgonio Mountain Pass also results in a relatively steady flow of wind without substantial turbulence. Building wind farms at a place like Gorgonio Mountain Pass to take advantage of wind velocity or at seashore like Cape Wind in Nantucket Sound, Massachusetts, requires huge collective as well as individual skills and efforts. These skills and efforts not only include intuition - the creative aspect of talent, but also hard work, deep understanding of scientific and engineering principles, manufacturing expertise, and keeping up with fast changing technology the mechanical aspect of talent. While many people might agree that identifying the source of one's intuition remains elusive, the mechanical aspect of skills and efforts can be improved. Distilling these skills from the essence of intuition provides the opportunity to consider how to improve them in a structured manner. Current thinking on talent and expertise helps us understand how these people could go about improving their skills. In his article for Fortune magazine, Geoffrey Colvin notes that "Anything that anyone does at work, from the most basic task to the most exalted, is an improvable skill." In the book, The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle examines this concept from a different angle, introducing the concept of deep practice: a route to accelerated learning where mistakes force one to slow down, make errors and correct them (p.18). Going beyond the fundamentals, the experienced wind farm developers build up a database of successful projects that allows them to instantly recognize the potential in the situations they encounter. Looking again at Colvin's description of how to build expertise, he states that "...one of your goals is to build what researchers call 'mental models of your business...' The more you work on it, the larger your mental models will become and the better your performance will grow." In my view, combining these concepts leads to a definition of wind farm developers expertise: a combination of technical and creativity competence, backed by a rich database of successful projects, all of which can be combined in an instant to produce successful wind farms. Incorporating thinking from Coyle and Colvin hints at a path to reach such expertise, i.e. sustained hard work focused on the skills identified earlier.

References 1. Fthenakis, V.; Kim, H. C. (2009). "Land use and electricity generation: A life-cycle analysis". Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 13 (6 7): 1465 2. Thornton, Staurt: Wild Winds, National Geographic; 04/2012 3. California, Palm Springs Wind Power: EcoFlight 4. Overview of Wind Energy in California: California Energy Commission 5. Coyle, Daniel. "The Sweet Spot." The Talent Code. Greatness Isnt Born. Its Grown. Heres How, New York: Bantam, 2009. 11--29. 6. Colvin, Geoffrey. "What it takes to be great." CNN Money. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/10/30/8391794/in dex.htm