Wind is most efficiency renewable power source

A video of new invented wind turbine see here.

Renewable energy resources, as solar radiation and wind power, are vast, and unlike the fossil fuels, they are very well distributed all over the world. The main problem associated with them is their diluted nature and the consequent necessity of high cost equipment to convert them into usable forms. In spite of the energy resources being free, their extraction is not. Economic considerations, quality and type of necessary energy to supply the final consumer needs have an important role in the selection of the technology.

As the sun heats up the Earth unevenly, winds are formed. The kinetic energy in the wind can be used to run wind turbines, some capable of producing 5 MW of power. The power output is a function of the cube of the wind speed, so such turbines generally require a wind in the range 5.5 m/s (20 km/h), and in practice relatively few land areas have significant prevailing winds. Luckily, offshore or at high altitudes, the winds are much more constant.

There are now many thousands of wind turbines operating in various parts of the world, with utility companies having a total capacity of 59,322 MW. Capacity in this case means maximum possible output which does not count load factor.

New wind farms and offshore wind parks are being planned and built all over the world. This has been the most rapidly-growing means of electricity generation at the turn of the 21st century and provides a complement to large-scale base-load power stations. Most deployed turbines produce electricity about 25% of the time (load factor 25%), but some reach 35%. The load factor is generally higher in winter. It means that a 5 MW turbine can have average output of 1.7 MW in the best case.

Global winds long-term technical potential is believed to be 5 times current global energy consumption or 40 times current electricity demand. This requires 12.7% of all land area, or that land area with Class 3 or greater potential at a height of 80 meters. It assumes that the land is covered with 6 large wind turbines per square kilometer. Offshore resources experience mean wind speeds of ~90% greater than that of land, so offshore resources could contribute substantially more energy. This number could also increase with higher altitude ground based or airborne wind turbines.

Wind strengths vary and thus cannot guarantee continuous power. Some estimates suggest that 1,000 MW of wind generation capacity can be relied on for just 333 MW of continuous power. While this might change as technology evolves, advocates have suggested incorporating wind power with other power sources, or the use of energy storage techniques, with this in mind. It is best used in the context of a system that has significant reserve capacity such as hydro, or reserve load, such as a desalination plant, to mitigate the economic effects of resource variability.

Wind power is renewable and is one of the few energy sources that contributes to greenhouse gas mitigation, because it removes energy directly from the atmosphere without producing net emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane (others greenhouse gas mitigating energy sources include solar thermal and ocean thermal).
In 2005, worldwide capacity of wind-powered generators was 58,982 megawatts, their production making up less than 1% of world-wide electricity use. Although still a relatively minor source of electricity for most countries, it accounts for 23% of electricity use in Denmark, 4.3% in Germany and around 8% in Spain. Globally, wind power generation more than quadrupled between 1999 and 2005.

Most modern wind power is generated in the form of electricity by converting the rotation of turbine blades into electrical current by means of an electrical generator. In windmills (a much older technology) wind energy is used to turn mechanical machinery to do physical work, like crushing grain or pumping water.

Wind power is used in large scale wind farms for national electrical grids as well as in small individual turbines for providing electricity in isolated locations.

Wind energy is abundant, renewable, widely distributed, clean, and mitigates the greenhouse effect by replacement of fossil-fuel-derived electricity.

On these pages you can find many advanced energy solution for urban, industrial, rural and offshore environment.

For more innovation see at http://tonchev.org

39A/2, Jerusalem Blvd. 1784 Sofia, Copyrights by George Tonchev

Phone/fax +3592 8760 431,+3592 8770 481,+3598 9787 2857, Mail to: mig@bulinfo.net