Wind power

Wind power has been used since antiquity, mostly for sail boats and then for windmills. In the Asian world, wind was mostly used to pump water and irrigate fields. Wind is nowadays used to produce electricity via wind turbines. 

Airflows on earth are created by the difference in atmospheric pressure between various locations on the surface of the earth and various altitudes. This movanent of air can be tapped for its energy content and converted to electricity. A single small wind turbine can provide sufficient energy for domestic purposes, or clusters of wind turbines on land or offshore called wind farms can be used to supply electricity to large communities or for addition to the electric grid. 

Commercial wind turbines are composed of several parts on the top of a tower that can be in excess of 100 m tall, three giant blades of 30 meters or more in length rotate a horizontal shaft, turning a generator that converts mechanical energy into roughly 3 MW electricity. Inside the tower there is a cable that carries electricity to transmission lines and a computer system that controls the rotation and direction of the blades. 

CURRENT AND FUTURE STATE OF ENERGY PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION 

Land-based wind turbines are installed in windy areas and where the population is low. There are limited available land sites and many local populations would prefer wind turbines to not be erected in sight. Wind tends to inaease along shorelines, and thus an important emerging alternative to land-based wind turbines are offshore turbines. They are similar to the ones used on land but they require reinforced foundations. The offshore wind turbines operate more regularly than the inland ones since the wind is more regular offshore and turbulence is reduced, generating increased wind speed. 

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Includes hydioelectiic, geothernial, wood, wood waste, municipal solid waste, other biomass, and solar and wind power. 

In the industrial arena, the term power generation most typically refers to the production of electrical or mechanical power via any of several energy conversion processes. Early examples of practical power generation devices include water-wheel-powered mills for grinding grain, which were reportedly used as early as 100 BC in the Balkans and areas of the Middle East, and wind-powered mills, which were widely used as early as the tenth century in the Middle East. 

For the above machine the wind power considering the Cp as 0.35 will be ... 

Wind turbines produce power by converting the force of the wind into torque. The power produced is a function of the wind energy flux (power), which, in turn, is a function of the air density multiplied by the wind velocity raised to the third power. Changes of air density with time at a particular site are negligible compared to the fluctuations in wind velocity. Meteorologists usually report wind speed as an average. To get the potential wind power, the average... 

Knowledge of how to tap the energy of wind and water was passed by both the Romans and Han Chinese to their successors. In the conservative eastern realm of the old Roman Empire (the Byzantine Empire), little was done to develop either wind power or water power, although Byzautinc vessels did make increased use of lateen sails after the eighth century. On the other hand, the western part of the old Roman Empire, perhaps due to labor shortages, saw a very significant increase in the use of both wind and water power, especially between 900 and 1300. 

From the earliest times, ships and boats were propelled by human power and wind power. In the nineteenth ccntui y vciy large and efficient sailing ships (many 70 to 100 m long) were transporting passen-... 

In 1766 Smeaton designed an atmospheric steampumping engine for the New River Company however, when the engine was set to work, its performance was less than Smeaton had expected. Realizing his knowledge of steam engines was deficient, he approached the problem in the same manner as he did his study of water and wind power—by... 

The annual LCOE for wind turbines has decreased dramatically since 1980. At that time, the LCOE was 0.35/kWh. In 1998, wind power plant projects were bid from 0.03kWli to 0.06/kWli. These numbers still exceed similar figures of merit... 

Gipe, P. (1993). Wind Power for Home and Business. Post Mills, VT Chelsea Green Publishing Company. 

Jungbluth et al. investigated two emerging electricity systems based on renewable energy, photovoltaic and wind power. They considered twelve different grid-connected... 

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