What is Wind Energy?
Wind energy is produced by the wind itself. When the whole world is serious about energy efficiency, wind energy increased its popularity among other energy source. In these days the advantages and disadvantages of wind energy are discussed very deeply. With the rising of the global energy costs, there is a need for alternative energy sources. There is a contradiction between the opinion of pros and cons of the wind energy.
What are advantages and disadvantages of wind energy ?
The advantages and disadvantages of wind energy are discussed below:
Advantages of wind energy
- Wind energy is actually totally fueled by the wind, that’s why it is a clean source of fuel. Power plants generally depend upon the burning of coal or natural gas. But wind energy does not pollute the earth like the power plants. There is another plus point to wind energy that wind turbine does not produce any atmospheric emissions that actually behind the greenhouse effect and acid rain.
- The wind energy is widely used in the nation where the wind supply is abundant.
- Basically, wind energy is totally relying on the renewable power of the wind, so cannot be used up. The rotation of the earth has the main role in causing the wind. The earth’s irregular surface and the heating of atmosphere by the sun are also the reason behind the wind production. So it can easily say that wind is a form of solar energy.
- A cheap renewable energy source is the wind energy. The costs of wind energy rely on the wind source and the project financing.
- Generally, wind turbines help the rural areas. They are built in these rural areas. Most of the best wind sites are found on the farms or ranches, so wind turbines are always built on there. The wind turbines only use the fraction of the land so for the farmers and ranchers this would not cause any problems. In fact, the farmers or ranches are benefitted by getting rent payment by the power plant owners as well as they can continue their work.
- A wind turbine actually needs very little attention, so there are no running costs except the maintenance costs that any machine needs. It makes the generated power cost effective by reducing the total cost of ownership.
Disadvantages of wind energy
- The main disadvantage of wind energy is that it totally depends on the weather. When strong winds are blowing only then a wind turbine is used. But wind turbine can generate power at even at slow speeds. It is important to locate the wind turbine on open ground where the power of wind is more.
- It is unsightly that means the wind turbine must be located in the rural areas. On this issue the environmental campaigners find some difficulties, they are afraid of getting the environment damaged.
- The setup cost of wind power is decreasing day by day whether it still requires more investments than any other fossil-fueled generators.
- Wind power plants actually cause less environmental damage but there is a problem with the rotor blades which produce noise.
- Sometimes birds are killed by the rotors when they accidentally flying into it.