Wind energy has been used since 4000 BC to power sailboats, grind grain, pump water for farms, and, more recently, generate electricity. In the United States alone, more than 6 million small windmills, most of them under 5 hp, have been used since the 1850s to pump water. Small windmills have been used to generate electricity since 1900, but the development of modern wind turbines occurred only recently in response to the energy crises in the early 1970s. The cost of wind power has dropped an order of magnitude from about $0.50/kWh in the early 1980s to about $0.05/kWh in the mid-1990s, which is about the price of electricity generated at coal-tired power plants. Areas with an average wind speed of 6 m/s (or 14 mph) are potential sites for economical wind power generation. Commercial wind turbines generate from 100 kW to 3.2 MW of electric power each at peak design conditions. The blade span (or rotor) diameter of the 3.2 MW wind turbine built by Boeing Engineering is 320 ft (97.5 m). The rotation speed of rotors of wind turbines is usually under 40 rpm (under 20 rpm for large turbines). Altamont Pass in California is the world’s largest wind farm with 15.000 modern wind turbines. This farm and two others in California produced 2.8 billion kWh of electricity in 1991, which is enough power to meet the electricity needs of San Francisco.
In 2003, 8133 MW of new wind energy generating capacity were installed worldwide, bringing the world’s total wind energy capacity to 39,294 MW. The United States. Germany, Denmark, and Spain account for over 75 percent of current wind energy generating capacity worldwide. Denmark uses wind turbines to supply 10 percent of its national electricity.
Many wind turbines currently in operation have just two blades. This is because at tip speeds of 100 to 200 mph, the efficiency of the two-bladed turbine approaches the theoretical maximum, and the increase in the efficiency by adding a third or fourth blade is so little that they do not justify the added cost and weight.
Consider a wind turbine with an 80-m-diameter rotor that is rotating at 20 rpm under steady winds at an average velocity of 30 km/h. Assuming the turbine has an efficiency of 35 percent (i.e., it converts 35 percent of the kinetic energy of the wind to electricity), determine (a) the power produced, in kW; (b) the tip speed of the blade, in km/h; and (c) the revenue generated by the wind turbine per year if the electric power produced is sold to the utility at $0.06/kWh. Take the density of air to be 1.20 kg/m3.
© Vol. 57/PhoroDisc