What Is Wind Energy

Wind energy, in common with other renewable energy sources, is broadly available but diffuse. Wind energy was widely used as a source of power before the industrial revolution, but later displaced by fossil fuel use because of differences in costs and reliability.

The oil crises of the 1970s, however, triggered renewed interest in wind energy technology for grid-connected electricity production, water pumping, and power supply in remote areas (1994b).

In recent decades enormous progress has been made in the development of wind turbines for electricity production.

Around 1980 the first modern grid-connected wind turbines were installed.

In 1990 about 2,000 megawatts of grid-connected wind power was in operation world-wide at the beginning of 2000, about 13,500 megawatts. In addition, more than 1 million water-pumping wind turbines (wind pumps), manufactured in many developing countries, supply water for livestock, mainly in remote areas.

And tens of thousands of small battery-charging wind generators are operated in China, Mongolia, and Central Asia.

what is wind energy

"WHAT IS WIND ENERGY ?" (THE POTENTIAL OF WIND ENERGY):

The technical potential of onshore wind energy to fulfill energy needs is very large-20,000-50,000 terawatt-hours a year.

The economic potential of wind energy depends on the economics of wind turbine systems and of alternative options. Apart from investment costs, the most important parameter determining the economics of a wind turbine system is annual energy output, in turn determined by such parameters as average wind speed, statistical wind speed distribution, turbulence intensities, and roughness of the surrounding terrain. The power in wind is proportional to the third power of the momentary wind speed.

Because of the sensitivity to wind speed, determining the potential of wind energy at a specific site is not straightforward. More accurate meteorological measurements and wind energy maps and handbooks are being produced and (mostly) published, enabling wind project developers to better assess the long-term economic performance of their projects.

In densely populated countries the best sites on land are occupied, and public resistance makes it difficult to realise new projects at acceptable cost. That is why Denmark and the Netherlands are developing offshore projects, despite less favorable economics.

Sweden and the United Kingdom are developing offshore projects to preserve the landscape.

"WHAT IS WIND ENERGY ?"

Resources offshore are much larger than those onshore, but to be interesting they have to be close to electric infrastructure. A comprehensive study by Germanische Lloyd and Garrad Hassan & Partners (Matthies and others, 1995) concluded that around 3,000 terawatt-hours a year of electricity could be generated in the coastal areas of the European Union (excluding Finland and Sweden).

With electricity consumption in those 12 countries at about 2,000 terawatt-hours a year, offshore options should be included in assessments of the potential of wind electricity.