Wind Power Explained

Wind power has historically been used in order to drive machinery, for example to pump water or to grind grain into flour, but it has more recently been harnessed to drive electricity producing wind turbines. The use of wind power for electricity production has increased rapidly in recent years. Wind power now generates about two percent of total energy production, worldwide.

The wind is created by the uneven heating of the atmosphere by the sun, which results in the movement of air of different temperatures. A turbine, turned by the wind, can drive a generator in order to produce electricity.

Wind power has huge potential for electricity production, only a tiny proportion of which has yet been used. It is estimated that there is about 72 terawatts of commercially viable wind power worldwide, while the current total power consumption for the whole world is 15 terawatts.

Wind turbines are used to produce electricity commercially in eighty countries around the world. The main users of wind power for electricity production are Germany, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Denmark. Denmark generates 20 percent of its electricity from wind power. The United States produces the most electricity from wind power, although it is a lower proportion of total energy use.

Wind power may be used on a small scale to produce electricity for local use, or commercially, inputting electricity into the main power network. Local production of electricity using wind turbines is often used in remote and isolated locations, where it would be almost impossible to obtain electricity through any other means. Commercial production can generate electricity that may be used at a great distance from the wind turbines.

The selection of the site for a turbine is the most important factor in how much electricity it will be able to produce. Wind turbines are usually located in places where they will receive a lot of wind energy. The amount of energy that is available in a given location depends upon the strength and speed of the wind, how often it blows and how it changes over time. Turbines may be placed on the land, or at sea. Small wind turbines may be used for small-scale local production, while huge wind farms may be built for commercial production.

The main costs involved with wind power are involved in the initial set up. It can also be expensive to set up transmission lines to carry the electricity generated from the areas where the wind provides most power to the cities where this power is needed.

Wind power is an environmentally friendly form of electricity production. It does not emit any pollution or consume fossil fuels. The energy that is required to manufacture the materials used in the construction of a wind farm, and to transport these materials to the site, is usually about the same as the amount of energy that will be produced by the turbine within the first few months of operation.

Wind power can provide huge amounts of energy, when the conditions are right. The record for electricity production through wind power was set in Spain in 2009, when, due to a combination of high wind speeds and low demand, wind turbines were able to produce more than half of the nation's energy requirements. Countries that have large commercial wind power enterprises tend to export a lot of energy because of this since the power that is produced needs to be used immediately. Denmark exports approximately half of the electricity it produces through wind power to Norway, for example.

There are some disadvantages to wind power. Many people find wind turbine unsightly, and some locals have been disturbed by the noise produced by turbines in nearby wind farms. Wind turbines may also pose a risk to birds and bats, although it is generally believed that this is a reasonably low risk.

Another problem is that wind power is non-dispatchable. This means that the electricity that is produced must be taken as soon as it is produced, when the wind is blowing. Wind power cannot produce electricity on demand in the same way as a conventional power plant, where production can be increased or decreased to match demand. However, it is possible to convert the electricity produced into another form in order to store it for future use. Batteries, pumped-storage hydroelectricity and production of hydrogen fuel using wind power are all possible solutions to the problem of intermittency.

Wind power is just one source of renewable energy that has the potential to help meet growing demand for electricity, and to replace the use of fossil fuels. A good source of more information about renewable energy is the PennEnergy.org website.