With the growing demand for alternative power sources, scientists and different manufacturers are starting to piece together different types of green equipment. You now have solar powered devices small enough to run a laptop computer and large enough to power entire office buildings. Solar and wind powered jets have soared through the sky and incredible heights and speeds, all while leaving every drop of oil and gas on the ground. These incredible advancements are made possible by peoples’ dedication to save our planet. But even though we have new devices which create energy in many different ways, some have stayed the exact same for many years. 

A wind turbine is a very simple piece of equipment. It is a rotating machine that converts the kinetic energy in wind into mechanical energy for our use with everyday electrical needs. If the mechanical energy is used directly by machinery, then the device is referred to as simple a windmill. But if the mechanical energy is then converted to electricity, the machine is called a wind turbine. Wind machines have been around since 200 B.C., when the Persians used them for grinding grain. They then moved from the Roman’s, to the Dutch, and ultimately to Cleveland, Ohio where the first windmill was used to produce electricity.

What a lot of people don’t know is that wind energy is also a form of solar energy. The sun’s radiation heats different parts of the earth at different rates. This in turn causes portions of our atmosphere to warm differently. The hot air rises and reduces the atmospheric pressure of the earth’s surface. And when the cooler air is drawn in to replace it, the result is wind. A wind turbine system is pretty basic in design. There are only two main designs of turbines: vertical-axis and horizontal-axis. Horizontal wind turbines are the most common, constituting nearly all of the utility –scale turbines in the global market. Utility-scale turbines produce 100 kilowatts kW, or larger.

  The ability to generate electricity is measured in watts. The output of a wind turbine depends on the turbine’s size and the wind’s speed through the rotor. Wind turbines that are manufactured now have power ratings ranging from 250 watts to 5 megawatts. A 10-kW turbine can generate around 10,000 kWh annually at a site where wind speeds average around 12 mph. This output is enough to power the typical household. One turbine of this capacity could easily power households running multiple electrical appliances including television sets, washer/dryers, water heaters, computers, etc.

 After you understand the set numbers for wattage and what a turbine is capable of, the rest of the equation is just simple math. If one turbine producing 10,000 kWh annually can power one house every day of the year, then you would need 10 turbines for 10 houses. Fortunately, most turbines of this nature are small and there isn’t a need for vast fields of turbines to power a town. In a city like Chicago, smaller turbines can produce more wattage. Again, it’s rather simple. In Chicago, the wind average is far more than 12mph, therefore, the turbines work faster, generating more current.

Tags: alternative power, Wind Power, wind turbines

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 at 12:30 pm and is filed under Vertical Windmills, Wind Power. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.