How Wind Turbines Work

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In wake of times when the fossil fuel sources of earth are gradually getting depleted, there is being a constant effort to switch to using other energy means which are re-usable and do not contribute to the already increasing pollution levels.

One such energy source is the sun which provides energy not only through its rays and heat but also through wind which is generated when the atmosphere gets heated unevenly through the course of earth’s rotation and falls on various irregular surfaces.

As the speed of the wind varies, the energy produced by it used by mankind in a number of constructive manners like sports, sailing across water bodies and also producing electricity.

How is Wind Energy Used?

Though not very complicated but, there is a particular set up, called wind turbine, which is used for utilising the wind energy. A turbine consists of the following parts:

  1. A cylindrical steel tower whose height remains in between 25 to 75 metres.
  2. Atop the tower there are two or three rotator blades which can be either of fibreglass or wood-epoxy. It is these blades that get moved by the wind and usually the longer they are the more are the energy output. These blades normally take 10 or 30 revolutions in a minute and it is with these that the power generation can be controlled.
  3. The blades are made to face the wind with the help of the yaw mechanism.
  4. Sensors are also attached to the turbine in order to gauge the direction of the wind and also the speed. Usually during high speed of the winds the machines are stopped so that they do not get damaged.
  5. The wind turbines also have gear boxes

How do Wind Turbines Work?

Wind turbines help in converting the kinetic energy to electrical energy. The working of the wind turbines can be explained in a couple of simple steps.

  1. The blades get moved by the wind
  2. Behind the blades there is a shaft which also gets turned in the process
  3. The shaft is connected to a gearbox which in turn controls the rotation speed
  4. The rotation starts a generator which is placed below and through which the rotation energy gets converted to electrical energy
  5. The electrical energy gets stored in transformers which also convert it to distributable energy which is around 33,000 Volts.
  6. It is this electrical energy which available in the National Grids and is then spread across the country.

Power Output of Wind Turbines

The wind turbines are usually built as per particular wind speeds like 35 to 55 mph and when working at such speeds they produce the maximum energy possible for them. However, if the wind speed falls even marginally, the energy production undergoes a drastic fall. As this depends on an unreliable factor of wind therefore though the market estimates that the output of wind turbines will cover up to 30 to 40% of the demands, it is usually observed that it generally remains to 15 to 30%.

Are Wind Turbines a Reliable Source of Energy?

As mentioned above, wind is an unreliable source of energy and as the speed drops the production also faces a dramatic decrease. Therefore, it normally reaches its average predicted output only 40% of the total working times.

Wind Turbines in the UK

As 40 percent of wind of the entire Europe blows over UK therefore, wind turbines find one of their largest use in this country. As there are a number of offshore and onshore wind farms in UK which generates electricity for most homes of the country thus, UK uses wind turbines at a very large scale. Across the entire UK there are 5, 276 wind turbines which have a complete capacity of more than 10 giga watts. UK being the windiest countries of Europe is known to be the 6th largest producer of wind energy in the whole world and produced about 15.5TWh of electricity in 2011 which was used to illuminate 4.5 million houses across the country. This figure grew by 70 percent as the country reached the second quarter of 2012 and also 2013. The largest offshore wind farm of UK, London Array, came in to operation in the 2013. In the same year, records were broken as UK produced 2,841,080MWh of electricity which helped in meeting nearly 10% of the country’s demand.

As wind blows across the country most of the times so, the wind turbines in UK are expected to generate electricity for about 70-85 percent of its working times. It has been analysed that one wind turbine of 2.5MW can generate electricity to be used by 1,400 houses. Keeping in mind all these positive aspects, the UK government is encouraging the construction of wind farms to produce 33GW of energy by 2020 which is going to more than three times of its current production. Companies like Siemens have offered plans to build wind farms in Paull in the year 2014.

However, there are some steep challenges being faced which is making it difficult to realise this goal. The major hindrance is the existing economic condition of UK and the rising price of steel and wind turbines. In the recent times, one of the old establishments of wind farms, Shell, backed out of a project as it faced difficulties to manage the finances and supporting infrastructural facilities. On top of that there are also some serious ecological implications which are coming in to limelight which is deferring the construction of newer wind farms in the country. The political segment of the country has also included this issue as one of their foremost agendas of debates and while one group is backing the idea of capping the construction of further wind farms, the other group is predicting a serious increase in the energy prices if the wind farms are taken out from the British soil. Meanwhile, 80 percent of the Europeans citizens are in favour of the wind energy as it is promoting the objectives of establishing a green world.