First Edition, 2011

ISBN 978-93-81157-74-9

All rights reserved.

Published by:
The English Press
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Delhi - 110002
Email: info@wtbooks.com

Table of Contents
Chapter 1- Introduction
Chapter 2 - History of Wind Power
Chapter 3 - High Altitude Wind Power
Chapter 4 - Wind Turbine
Chapter 5 - Floating Wind Turbine
Chapter 6 - Darrieus Wind Turbine
Chapter 7 - Unconventional Wind Turbines
Chapter 8 - Small Wind Turbine
Chapter 9 - Vertical Axis, Savonius & Airborne Wind Turbine
Chapter 10 - Wind Turbine Design
Chapter 11 - Wind Turbine Aerodynamics
Chapter 12 - Wind Farm
Chapter 13 - Windmill
Chapter 14 - Environmental Effects of Wind Power

Chapter- 1

Introduction

Wind power: worldwide installed capacity 1996-2008

Burbo Bank Offshore Wind Farm, at the entrance to the River Mersey in North West
England.

A modern wind turbine in rural scenery.

Wind power is the conversion of wind energy into a useful form of energy, such as using
wind turbines to make electricity, wind mills for mechanical power, wind pumps for
pumping water or drainage, or sails to propel ships.
At the end of 2009, worldwide nameplate capacity of wind-powered generators was
159.2 gigawatts (GW). Energy production was 340 TWh, which is about 2% of
worldwide electricity usage; and has doubled in the past three years. Several countries
have achieved relatively high levels of wind power penetration (with large governmental
subsidies), such as 20% of stationary electricity production in Denmark, 14% in Ireland
and Portugal, 11% in Spain, and 8% in Germany in 2009. As of May 2009, 80 countries
around the world are using wind power on a commercial basis.
Large-scale wind farms are connected to the electric power transmission network; smaller
facilities are used to provide electricity to isolated locations. Utility companies
increasingly buy back surplus electricity produced by small domestic turbines. Wind
energy, as an alternative to fossil fuels, is plentiful, renewable, widely distributed, clean,
and produces no greenhouse gas emissions during operation. However, the construction
of wind farms is not universally welcomed because of their visual impact and other
effects on the environment.
Wind power is non-dispatchable, meaning that for economic operation, all of the
available output must be taken when it is available. Other resources, such as hydropower,
and load management techniques must be used to match supply with demand. The

intermittency of wind seldom creates problems when using wind power to supply a low
proportion of total demand, but as the proportion rises, problems are created such as
increased costs, the need to upgrade the grid, and a lowered ability to supplant
conventional production. Power management techniques such as exporting excess power
to neighboring areas or reducing demand when wind production is low, can mitigate
these problems.

History

Medieval depiction of a wind mill

Windmills are typically installed in favourable windy locations. In the image, wind power
generators in Spain near an Osborne bull
Humans have been using wind power for at least 5,500 years to propel sailboats and
sailing ships. Windmills have been used for irrigation pumping and for milling grain
since the 7th century AD in what is now Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan.
In the United States, the development of the "water-pumping windmill" was the major
factor in allowing the farming and ranching of vast areas otherwise devoid of readily
accessible water. Windpumps contributed to the expansion of rail transport systems
throughout the world, by pumping water from water wells for the steam locomotives. The
multi-bladed wind turbine atop a lattice tower made of wood or steel was, for many
years, a fixture of the landscape throughout rural America. When fitted with generators
and battery banks, small wind machines provided electricity to isolated farms.
In July 1887, a Scottish academic, Professor James Blyth, undertook wind power
experiments that culminated in a UK patent in 1891. In the United States, Charles F.
Brush produced electricity using a wind powered machine, starting in the winter of 18871888, which powered his home and laboratory until about 1900. In the 1890s, the Danish
scientist and inventor Poul la Cour constructed wind turbines to generate electricity,
which was then used to produce hydrogen. These were the first of what was to become
the modern form of wind turbine.
Small wind turbines for lighting of isolated rural buildings were widespread in the first
part of the 20th century. Larger units intended for connection to a distribution network

were tried at several locations including Balaklava USSR in 1931 and in a 1.25 megawatt
(MW) experimental unit in Vermont in 1941.
The modern wind power industry began in 1979 with the serial production of wind
turbines by Danish manufacturers Kuriant, Vestas, Nordtank, and Bonus. These early
turbines were small by today's standards, with capacities of 2030 kW each. Since then,
they have increased greatly in size, with the Enercon E-126 capable of delivering up to 7
MW, while wind turbine production has expanded to many countries.

Wind energy

Distribution of wind speed (red) and energy (blue) for all of 2002 at the Lee Ranch
facility in Colorado. The histogram shows measured data, while the curve is the Rayleigh
model distribution for the same average wind speed. Energy is the Betz limit through a
100 m (328 ft) diameter circle facing directly into the wind. Total energy for the year
through that circle was 15.4 gigawatt-hours (GWh).
The Earth is unevenly heated by the sun, such that the poles receive less energy from the
sun than the equator; along with this, dry land heats up (and cools down) more quickly
than the seas do. The differential heating drives a global atmospheric convection system
reaching from the Earth's surface to the stratosphere which acts as a virtual ceiling. Most
of the energy stored in these wind movements can be found at high altitudes where
continuous wind speeds of over 160 km/h (99 mph) occur. Eventually, the wind energy is
converted through friction into diffuse heat throughout the Earth's surface and the
atmosphere.
The total amount of economically extractable power available from the wind is
considerably more than present human power use from all sources. An estimated
72 terawatt (TW) of wind power on the Earth potentially can be commercially viable,

compared to about 15 TW average global power consumption from all sources in 2005.
Not all the energy of the wind flowing past a given point can be recovered.

Distribution of wind speed

The strength of wind varies, and an average value for a given location does not alone
indicate the amount of energy a wind turbine could produce there. To assess the
frequency of wind speeds at a particular location, a probability distribution function is
often fit to the observed data. Different locations will have different wind speed
distributions. The Weibull model closely mirrors the actual distribution of hourly wind
speeds at many locations. The Weibull factor is often close to 2 and therefore a Rayleigh
distribution can be used as a less accurate, but simpler model.
Because so much power is generated by higher wind speed, much of the energy comes in
short bursts. The 2002 Lee Ranch sample is telling; half of the energy available arrived in
just 15% of the operating time. The consequence is that wind energy from a particular
turbine or wind farm does not have as consistent an output as fuel-fired power plants;
utilities that use wind power provide power from starting existing generation for times
when the wind is weak thus wind power is primarily a fuel saver rather than a capacity
saver. Making wind power more consistent requires that various existing technologies
and methods be extended, in particular the use of stronger inter-regional transmission
lines to link widely distributed wind farms. Problems of variability are addressed by grid
energy storage, batteries, pumped-storage hydroelectricity and energy demand
management.

Electricity generation

Typical components of a wind turbine (gearbox, rotor shaft and brake assembly) being
lifted into position
In a wind farm, individual turbines are interconnected with a medium voltage (often 34.5
kV), power collection system and communications network. At a substation, this
medium-voltage electric current is increased in voltage with a transformer for connection
to the high voltage electric power transmission system.
The surplus power produced by domestic microgenerators can, in some jurisdictions, be
fed into the network and sold to the utility company, producing a retail credit for the
microgenerators' owners to offset their energy costs.

Grid management
Induction generators, often used for wind power, require reactive power for excitation so
substations used in wind-power collection systems include substantial capacitor banks for
power factor correction. Different types of wind turbine generators behave differently
during transmission grid disturbances, so extensive modelling of the dynamic
electromechanical characteristics of a new wind farm is required by transmission system
operators to ensure predictable stable behaviour during system faults (see: Low voltage
ride through). In particular, induction generators cannot support the system voltage
during faults, unlike steam or hydro turbine-driven synchronous generators. Doubly-fed

machines generally have more desirable properties for grid interconnection .

Transmission systems operators will supply a wind farm developer with a grid code to
specify the requirements for interconnection to the transmission grid. This will include
power factor, constancy of frequency and dynamic behavior of the wind farm turbines
during a system fault.

Capacity factor

Worldwide installed capacity 19972020 [MW], developments and prognosis.

Since wind speed is not constant, a wind farm's annual energy production is never as
much as the sum of the generator nameplate ratings multiplied by the total hours in a
year. The ratio of actual productivity in a year to this theoretical maximum is called the
capacity factor. Typical capacity factors are 2040%, with values at the upper end of the
range in particularly favourable sites. For example, a 1 MW turbine with a capacity factor
of 35% will not produce 8,760 MWh in a year (1 24 365), but only 1 0.35 24
365 = 3,066 MWh, averaging to 0.35 MW. Online data is available for some locations
and the capacity factor can be calculated from the yearly output.
Unlike fueled generating plants, the capacity factor is limited by the inherent properties
of wind. Capacity factors of other types of power plant are based mostly on fuel cost,
with a small amount of downtime for maintenance. Nuclear plants have low incremental
fuel cost, and so are run at full output and achieve a 90% capacity factor. Plants with
higher fuel cost are throttled back to follow load. Gas turbine plants using natural gas as
fuel may be very expensive to operate and may be run only to meet peak power demand.
A gas turbine plant may have an annual capacity factor of 525% due to relatively high
energy production cost.
In a 2008 study released by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency
and Renewable Energy, the capacity factor achieved by the wind turbine fleet is shown to
be increasing as the technology improves. The capacity factor achieved by new wind
turbines in 2004 and 2005 reached 36%.

Penetration

Kitegen
Wind energy "penetration" refers to the fraction of energy produced by wind compared
with the total available generation capacity. There is no generally accepted "maximum"
level of wind penetration. The limit for a particular grid will depend on the existing
generating plants, pricing mechanisms, capacity for storage or demand management, and
other factors. An interconnected electricity grid will already include reserve generating
and transmission capacity to allow for equipment failures; this reserve capacity can also
serve to regulate for the varying power generation by wind plants. Studies have indicated
that 20% of the total electrical energy consumption may be incorporated with minimal
difficulty. These studies have been for locations with geographically dispersed wind
farms, some degree of dispatchable energy, or hydropower with storage capacity, demand
management, and interconnection to a large grid area export of electricity when needed.
Beyond this level, there are few technical limits, but the economic implications become
more significant. Electrical utilities continue to study the effects of large (20% or more)
scale penetration of wind generation on system stability and economics.
At present, a few grid systems have penetration of wind energy above 5%: Denmark
(values over 19%), Spain and Portugal (values over 11%), Germany and the Republic of
Ireland (values over 6%). But even with a modest level of penetration, there can be times
where wind power provides a substantial percentage of the power on a grid. For example,
in the morning hours of 8 November 2009, wind energy produced covered more than half

the electricity demand in Spain, setting a new record. This was an instance where demand
was very low but wind power generation was very high.

Wildorado Wind Ranch in Oldham County in the Texas Panhandle, as photographed

from U.S. Route 385

Intermittency and penetration limits

Electricity generated from wind power can be highly variable at several different
timescales: from hour to hour, daily, and seasonally. Annual variation also exists, but is
not as significant. Related to variability is the short-term (hourly or daily) predictability
of wind plant output. Like other electricity sources, wind energy must be "scheduled".
Wind power forecasting methods are used, but predictability of wind plant output
remains low for short-term operation.
Because instantaneous electrical generation and consumption must remain in balance to
maintain grid stability, this variability can present substantial challenges to incorporating
large amounts of wind power into a grid system. Intermittency and the non-dispatchable
nature of wind energy production can raise costs for regulation, incremental operating
reserve, and (at high penetration levels) could require an increase in the already existing
energy demand management, load shedding, or storage solutions or system
interconnection with HVDC cables. At low levels of wind penetration, fluctuations in

load and allowance for failure of large generating units requires reserve capacity that can
also regulate for variability of wind generation. Wind power can be replaced by other
power stations during low wind periods. Transmission networks must already cope with
outages of generation plant and daily changes in electrical demand. Systems with large
wind capacity components may need more spinning reserve (plants operating at less than
full load).
Pumped-storage hydroelectricity or other forms of grid energy storage can store energy
developed by high-wind periods and release it when needed. Stored energy increases the
economic value of wind energy since it can be shifted to displace higher cost generation
during peak demand periods. The potential revenue from this arbitrage can offset the cost
and losses of storage; the cost of storage may add 25% to the cost of any wind energy
stored, but it is not envisaged that this would apply to a large proportion of wind energy
generated. The 2 GW Dinorwig pumped storage plant in Wales evens out electrical
demand peaks, and allows base-load suppliers to run their plant more efficiently.
Although pumped storage power systems are only about 75% efficient, and have high
installation costs, their low running costs and ability to reduce the required electrical
base-load can save both fuel and total electrical generation costs.
In particular geographic regions, peak wind speeds may not coincide with peak demand
for electrical power. In the US states of California and Texas, for example, hot days in
summer may have low wind speed and high electrical demand due to air conditioning.
Some utilities subsidize the purchase of geothermal heat pumps by their customers, to
reduce electricity demand during the summer months by making air conditioning up to
70% more efficient; widespread adoption of this technology would better match
electricity demand to wind availability in areas with hot summers and low summer winds.
Another option is to interconnect widely dispersed geographic areas with an HVDC
"Super grid". In the USA it is estimated that to upgrade the transmission system to take in
planned or potential renewables would cost at least $60 billion.
In the UK, demand for electricity is higher in winter than in summer, and so are wind
speeds. Solar power tends to be complementary to wind. On daily to weekly timescales,
high pressure areas tend to bring clear skies and low surface winds, whereas low pressure
areas tend to be windier and cloudier. On seasonal timescales, solar energy typically
peaks in summer, whereas in many areas wind energy is lower in summer and higher in
winter. Thus the intermittencies of wind and solar power tend to cancel each other
somewhat. A demonstration project at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy shows the
effect. The Institute for Solar Energy Supply Technology of the University of Kassel
pilot-tested a combined power plant linking solar, wind, biogas and hydrostorage to
provide load-following power around the clock, entirely from renewable sources.
A report on Denmark's wind power noted that their wind power network provided less
than 1% of average demand 54 days during the year 2002. Wind power advocates argue
that these periods of low wind can be dealt with by simply restarting existing power
stations that have been held in readiness or interlinking with HVDC. Electrical grids with

slow-responding thermal power plants and without ties to networks with hydroelectric
generation may have to limit the use of wind power.
Three reports on the wind variability in the UK issued in 2009, generally agree that
variability of wind needs to be taken into account, but it does not make the grid
unmanageable; and the additional costs, which are modest, can be quantified.
A 2006 International Energy Agency forum presented costs for managing intermittency
as a function of wind-energy's share of total capacity for several countries, as shown:
Increase in system operation costs, Euros per MWh, for 10% and 20% wind share
10% 20%
Germany 2.5 3.2
Denmark 0.4 0.8
Finland 0.3 1.5
Norway 0.1 0.3
Sweden 0.3 0.7

Capacity credit and fuel saving

Many commentators concentrate on whether or not wind has any "capacity credit"
without defining what they mean by this and its relevance. Wind does have a capacity
credit, using a widely accepted and meaningful definition, equal to about 20% of its rated
output (but this figure varies depending on actual circumstances). This means that reserve
capacity on a system equal in MW to 20% of added wind could be retired when such
wind is added without affecting system security or robustness. But the precise value is
irrelevant since the main value of wind (in the UK, worth 5 times the capacity credit
value ) is its fuel and CO2 savings.
According to a 2007 Stanford University study published in the Journal of Applied
Meteorology and Climatology, interconnecting ten or more wind farms can allow an
average of 33% of the total energy produced to be used as reliable, baseload electric
power, as long as minimum criteria are met for wind speed and turbine height.

Installation placement
Good selection of a wind turbine site is critical to economic development of wind power.
Aside from the availability of wind itself, other factors include the availability of
transmission lines, value of energy to be produced, cost of land acquisition, land use
considerations, and environmental impact of construction and operations. Off-shore
locations may offset their higher construction cost with higher annual load factors,
thereby reducing cost of energy produced. Wind farm designers use specialized wind

energy software applications to evaluate the impact of these issues on a given wind farm
design.
Wind power density (WPD) is a calculation of the effective power of the wind at a
particular location. A map showing the distribution of wind power density is a first step
in identifying possible locations for wind turbines. In the United States, the National
Renewable Energy Laboratory classifies wind power density into ascending classes. The
larger the WPD at a location, the higher it is rated by class. Wind power classes 3 (300
400 W/m2 at 50 m altitude) to 7 (8002000 W/m2 at 50 m altitude) are generally
considered suitable for wind power development. There are 625,000 km2 in the
contiguous United States that have class 3 or higher wind resources and which are within
10 km of electric transmission lines. If this area is fully utilized for wind power, it would
produce power at the average continuous equivalent rate of 734 GWe. For comparison, in
2007 the US consumed electricity at an average rate of 474 GW, from a total generating
capacity of 1,088 GW.

Wind power usage

#
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

Installed windpower capacity (MW)

Nation
2005 2006 2007
2008
40,722 48,122 56,614 65,255
European Union
United States
9,149 11,603 16,819 25,170
Germany
18,428 20,622 22,247 23,903
1,266 2,599 5,912 12,210
China
10,028 11,630 15,145 16,740
Spain
4,430 6,270 7,850 9,587
India
1,718 2,123 2,726 3,537
Italy
779 1,589 2,477 3,426
France
United Kingdom
1,353 1,963 2,389 3,288
1,022 1,716 2,130 2,862
Portugal
3,132 3,140 3,129 3,164
Denmark
Canada
683 1,460 1,846 2,369
1,236 1,571 1,759 2,237
Netherlands
1,040 1,309 1,528 1,880
Japan
Australia
579
817
817 1,494
Sweden
509
571
831 1,067
Ireland
495
746
805 1,245
573
758
873
990
Greece
819
965
982
995
Austria
20
65
207
433
Turkey
Poland
83
153
276
472

2009
74,767
35,159
25,777
25,104
19,149
10,925
4,850
4,410
4,070
3,535
3,465
3,319
2,229
2,056
1,712
1,560
1,260
1,087
995
801
725

21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39

29
237
247
339
606
Brazil
167
194
287
384
563
Belgium
Mexico
2
84
85
85
520
New Zealand
168
171
322
325
497
104
188
280
358
436
Taiwan
268
325
333
428
431
Norway
145
230
310
390
430
Egypt
119
176
192
278
348
South Korea
64
64
125
125
253
Morocco
Hungary
18
61
65
127
201
30
57
116
150
192
Czech Republic
Bulgaria
14
36
57
158
177
?
?
?
20
168
Chile
Finland
82
86
110
143
147
Estonia
?
?
59
78
142
Costa Rica
?
?
?
74
123
77
86
89
90
94
Ukraine
Iran
32
47
67
82
91
Lithuania
7
56
50
54
91
Other Europe (non EU27)
391
494
601
1022
1385
Rest of Americas
155
159
184
210
175
Rest of Africa
52
52
51
56
91
& Middle East
Rest of Asia
27
27
27
36
51
& Oceania
World total (MW)
59,024 74,151 93,927 121,188 157,899

There are now many thousands of wind turbines operating, with a total nameplate
capacity of 157,899 MW of which wind power in Europe accounts for 48% (2009).
World wind generation capacity more than quadrupled between 2000 and 2006, doubling
about every three years. 81% of wind power installations are in the US and Europe. The
share of the top five countries in terms of new installations fell from 71% in 2004 to 62%
in 2006, but climbed to 73% by 2008 as those countries the United States, Germany,
Spain, China, and India have seen substantial capacity growth in the past two years.
The World Wind Energy Association forecast that, by 2010, over 200 GW of capacity
would have been installed worldwide, up from 73.9 GW at the end of 2006, implying an
anticipated net growth rate of more than 28% per year.
Wind accounts for nearly one-fifth of electricity generated in Denmark the highest
percentage of any country and it is tenth in the world in total wind power generation.

Denmark is prominent in the manufacturing and use of wind turbines, with a commitment
made in the 1970s to eventually produce half of the country's power by wind.
In recent years, the US has added substantial amounts of wind power generation capacity,
growing from just over 6 GW at the end of 2004 to over 35 GW at the end of 2009. The
U.S. is currently the world's leader in wind power generation capacity. The country as a
whole generates just 2.4% of its electrical power from wind, but several states generate
substantial amounts of wind power. Texas is the state with the largest amount of
generation capacity with 9,410 MW installed. This would have ranked sixth in the world,
were Texas a separate country. Iowa is the state with the highest percentage of wind
generation, at 14.2% in 2009. California was one of the incubators of the modern wind
power industry, and led the U.S. in installed capacity for many years. As of mid-2010,
fourteen U..S. states had wind power generation capacities in excess of 1000 MW. U.S.
Department of Energy studies have concluded that wind from the Great Plains states of
Texas, Kansas, and North Dakota could provide enough electricity to power the entire
nation, and that offshore wind farms could do the same job.
China had originally set a generating target of 30,000 MW by 2020 from renewable
energy sources, but reached 22,500 MW by end of 2009 and could easily surpass
30,000 MW by end of 2010. Indigenous wind power could generate up to 253,000 MW.
A Chinese renewable energy law was adopted in November 2004, following the World
Wind Energy Conference organized by the Chinese and the World Wind Energy
Association. By 2008, wind power was growing faster in China than the government had
planned, and indeed faster in percentage terms than in any other large country, having
more than doubled each year since 2005. Policymakers doubled their wind power
prediction for 2010, after the wind industry reached the original goal of 5 GW three years
ahead of schedule. Current trends suggest an actual installed capacity near 20 GW by
2010, with China shortly thereafter pursuing the United States for the world wind power
lead.
India ranks 5th in the world with a total wind power capacity of 10,925 MW in 2009, or
3% of all electricity produced in India. The World Wind Energy Conference in New
Delhi in November 2006 has given additional impetus to the Indian wind industry.
Muppandal village in Tamil Nadu state, India, has several wind turbine farms in its
vicinity, and is one of the major wind energy harnessing centres in India led by majors
like Suzlon, Vestas, Micon among others.
Mexico recently opened La Venta II wind power project as a step toward reducing
Mexico's consumption of fossil fuels. The 88 MW project is the first of its kind in
Mexico, and will provide 13 percent of the electricity needs of the state of Oaxaca. By
2012 the project will have a capacity of 3,500 MW. In May 2010, Sempra Energy
announced it would build a wind farm in Baja California, with a capacity of at least
1,000 MW, at a cost of $5.5 billion.
Another growing market is Brazil, with a wind potential of 143 GW.

South Africa has a proposed station situated on the West Coast north of the Olifants
River mouth near the town of Koekenaap, east of Vredendal in the Western Cape
province. The station is proposed to have a total output of 100 MW although there are
negotiations to double this capacity. The plant could be operational by 2010.
France has announced a target of 12,500 MW installed by 2010, though their installation
trends over the past few years suggest they'll fall well short of their goal.
Canada experienced rapid growth of wind capacity between 2000 and 2006, with total
installed capacity increasing from 137 MW to 1,451 MW, and showing an annual growth
rate of 38%. Particularly rapid growth was seen in 2006, with total capacity doubling
from the 684 MW at end-2005. This growth was fed by measures including installation
targets, economic incentives and political support. For example, the Ontario government
announced that it will introduce a feed-in tariff for wind power, referred to as 'Standard
Offer Contracts', which may boost the wind industry across the province. In Quebec, the
provincially owned electric utility plans to purchase an additional 2000 MW by 2013. By
2025, Canada will reach its capacity of 55,000 MW of wind energy, or 20% of the
country's energy needs.

Power analysis
Due to ever increasing sizes of turbines which hit maximum power at lower speeds
energy produced has been rising faster than nameplate power capacity. Energy more than
doubled between 2006 and 2008 in the table above, yet nameplate capacity (table on left)
grew by 63% in the same period.

Small-scale wind power

This wind turbine charges a 12 V battery to run 12 V appliances.

Small-scale wind power is the name given to wind generation systems with the capacity
to produce up to 50 kW of electrical power. Isolated communities, that may otherwise
rely on diesel generators may use wind turbines to displace diesel fuel consumption.
Individuals may purchase these systems to reduce or eliminate their dependence on grid
electricity for economic or other reasons, or to reduce their carbon footprint. Wind
turbines have been used for household electricity generation in conjunction with battery
storage over many decades in remote areas.
Grid-connected wind turbines may use grid energy storage, displacing purchased energy
with local production when available. Off-grid system users can either adapt to
intermittent power or use batteries, photovoltaic or diesel systems to supplement the wind
turbine. Equipment such as parking meters or wireless Internet gateways may be powered

by a wind turbine that charges a small battery, replacing the need for a connection to the
power grid.
In locations near or around a group of high-rise buildings, wind shear generates areas of
intense turbulence, especially at street-level. The risks associated with mechanical or
catastrophic failure have thus plagued urban wind development in densely populated
areas, rendering the costs of insuring urban wind systems prohibitive. Moreover,
quantifying the amount of wind in urban areas has been difficult, as little is known about
the actual wind resources of towns and cities.
A new Carbon Trust study into the potential of small-scale wind energy has found that
small wind turbines could provide up to 1.5 terawatt hours (TWh) per year of electricity
(0.4% of total UK electricity consumption), saving 0.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide
(Mt CO2) emission savings. This is based on the assumption that 10% of households
would install turbines at costs competitive with grid electricity, around 12 pence (US 19
cents) a kWh.
Distributed generation from renewable resources is increasing as a consequence of the
increased awareness of climate change. The electronic interfaces required to connect
renewable generation units with the utility system can include additional functions, such
as the active filtering to enhance the power quality.

Economics and feasibility

5 kilowatt Vertical axis wind turbine

Windmill with rotating sails

Relative cost of electricity by generation source

Growth and cost trends
Wind power has negligible fuel costs, but a high capital cost. The estimated average cost
per unit incorporates the cost of construction of the turbine and transmission facilities,
borrowed funds, return to investors (including cost of risk), estimated annual production,
and other components, averaged over the projected useful life of the equipment, which
may be in excess of twenty years. Energy cost estimates are highly dependent on these
assumptions so published cost figures can differ substantially. A British Wind Energy
Association report gives an average generation cost of onshore wind power of around 3.2

pence (between US 5 and 6 cents) per kWh (2005). Cost per unit of energy produced
was estimated in 2006 to be comparable to the cost of new generating capacity in the US
for coal and natural gas: wind cost was estimated at $55.80 per MWh, coal at
$53.10/MWh and natural gas at $52.50. Other sources in various studies have estimated
wind to be more expensive than other sources. A 2009 study on wind power in Spain by
the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos concluded that each installed MW of wind power
destroyed 4.27 jobs, by raising energy costs and driving away electricity-intensive
businesses. However, the presence of wind energy, even when subsidised, can reduce
costs for consumers (5 billion/yr in Germany) by reducing the marginal price by
minimising the use of expensive 'peaker plants'.
In 2004, wind energy cost a fifth of what it did in the 1980s, and some expected that
downward trend to continue as larger multi-megawatt turbines were mass-produced.
However, installed cost averaged 1,300 a kW in 2007, compared to 1,100 a kW in
2005. Not as many facilities can produce large modern turbines and their towers and
foundations, so constraints develop in the supply of turbines resulting in higher costs.
Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) figures show that 2007 recorded an increase of
installed capacity of 20 GW, taking the total installed wind energy capacity to 94 GW, up
from 74 GW in 2006. Despite constraints facing supply chains for wind turbines, the
annual market for wind continued to increase at an estimated rate of 37%, following 32%
growth in 2006. In terms of economic value, the wind energy sector has become one of
the important players in the energy markets, with the total value of new generating
equipment installed in 2007 reaching 25 billion, or US$36 billion.
Although the wind power industry will be impacted by the global financial crisis in 2009
and 2010, a BTM Consult five year forecast up to 2013 projects substantial growth. Over
the past five years the average growth in new installations has been 27.6 percent each
year. In the forecast to 2013 the expected average annual growth rate is 15.7 percent.
More than 200 GW of new wind power capacity could come on line before the end of
2013. Wind power market penetration is expected to reach 3.35 percent by 2013 and 8
percent by 2018.
Existing generation capacity represents sunk costs, and the decision to continue
production will depend on marginal costs going forward, not estimated average costs at
project inception. For example, the estimated cost of new wind power capacity may be
lower than that for "new coal" (estimated average costs for new generation capacity) but
higher than for "old coal" (marginal cost of production for existing capacity). Therefore,
the choice to increase wind capacity will depend on factors including the profile of
existing generation capacity.

Theoretical potential - World

Map of available wind power for the United States. Color codes indicate wind power
density class.
Wind power available in the atmosphere is much greater than current world energy
consumption. The most comprehensive study as of 2005 found the potential of wind
power on land and near-shore to be 72 TW, equivalent to 54,000 MToE (million tons of
oil equivalent) per year, or over five times the world's current energy use in all forms.
The potential takes into account only locations with mean annual wind speeds 6.9 m/s
at 80 m. The study assumes six 1.5 megawatt, 77 m diameter turbines per square
kilometer on roughly 13% of the total global land area (though that land would also be
available for other compatible uses such as farming). The authors acknowledge that many
practical barriers would need to be overcome to reach this theoretical capacity.
The practical limit to exploitation of wind power will be set by economic and
environmental factors, since the resource available is far larger than any practical means
to develop it.

Theoretical potential - UK
A recent estimate gives the total potential average output for UK for various depth and
distance from the coast. The maximum case considered was beyond 200 km from shore
and in depths of 100 700 m (necessitating floating wind turbines) and this gave an

average resource of 2,000 GWe which is to be compared with the average UK demand of
about 40 GWe.

Direct costs
Many potential sites for wind farms are far from demand centres, requiring substantially
more money to construct new transmission lines and substations. In some regions this is
partly because frequent strong winds themselves have discouraged dense human
settlement in especially windy areas. The wind which was historically a nuisance is now
becoming a valuable resource, but it may be far from large populations which developed
in areas more sheltered from wind.
Since the primary cost of producing wind energy is construction and there are no fuel
costs, the average cost of wind energy per unit of production depends on a few key
assumptions, such as the cost of capital and years of assumed service. The marginal cost
of wind energy once a plant is constructed is usually less than 1 cent per kWh. Since the
cost of capital plays a large part in projected cost, risk (as perceived by investors) will
affect projected costs per unit of electricity.
The commercial viability of wind power also depends on the price paid to power
producers. Electricity prices are highly regulated worldwide, and in many locations may
not reflect the full cost of production, let alone indirect subsidies or negative externalities.
Customers may enter into long-term pricing contracts for wind to reduce the risk of future
pricing changes, thereby ensuring more stable returns for projects at the development
stage. These may take the form of standard offer contracts, whereby the system operator
undertakes to purchase power from wind at a fixed price for a certain period (perhaps up
to a limit); these prices may be different than purchase prices from other sources, and
even incorporate an implicit subsidy.
Where the price for electricity is based on market mechanisms, revenue for all producers
per unit is higher when their production coincides with periods of higher prices. The
profitability of wind farms will therefore be higher if their production schedule coincides
with these periods. If wind represents a significant portion of supply, average revenue per
unit of production may be lower as more expensive and less-efficient forms of
generation, which typically set revenue levels, are displaced from economic dispatch.
This may be of particular concern if the output of many wind plants in a market have
strong temporal correlation. In economic terms, the marginal revenue of the wind sector
as penetration increases may diminish.

Incentives

Some of the over 6,000 wind turbines at Altamont Pass, in California, United States.
Developed during a period of tax incentives in the 1980s, this wind farm has more
turbines than any other in the United States.
Wind energy in many jurisdictions receives some financial or other support to encourage
its development. Wind energy benefits from subsidies in many jurisdictions, either to
increase its attractiveness, or to compensate for subsidies received by other forms of
production which have significant negative externalities.
In the United States, wind power receives a tax credit for each kWh produced; at 1.9
cents per kWh in 2006, the credit has a yearly inflationary adjustment. Another tax
benefit is accelerated depreciation. Many American states also provide incentives, such
as exemption from property tax, mandated purchases, and additional markets for "green
credits". Countries such as Canada and Germany also provide incentives for wind turbine
construction, such as tax credits or minimum purchase prices for wind generation, with
assured grid access (sometimes referred to as feed-in tariffs). These feed-in tariffs are
typically set well above average electricity prices. The Energy Improvement and
Extension Act of 2008 contains extensions of credits for wind, including microturbines.
Secondary market forces also provide incentives for businesses to use wind-generated
power, even if there is a premium price for the electricity. For example, socially
responsible manufacturers pay utility companies a premium that goes to subsidize and

build new wind power infrastructure. Companies use wind-generated power, and in
return they can claim that they are making a powerful "green" effort. In the USA the
organization Green-e monitors business compliance with these renewable energy credits.

Full costs and lobbying

Commenting on the EU's 2020 renewable energy target, Helm (2009) is critical of how
the costs of wind power are citied by lobbyists:
For those with an economic interest in capturing as much of the climate-change pork
barrel as possible, there are two ways of presenting the costs [of wind power] in a
favourable light: first, define the cost base as narrowly as possible; and, second, assume
that the costs will fall over time with R&D and large-scale deployment. And, for good
measure, when considering the alternatives, go for a wider cost base (for example,
focusing on the full fuel-cycle costs of nuclear and coal-mining for coal generation) and
assume that these technologies are mature, and even that costs might rise (for example,
invoking the peak oil hypothesis).
A House of Lords Select Committee report (2008) on renewable energy in the UK says:
We have a particular concern over the prospective role of wind generated and other
intermittent sources of electricity in the UK, in the absence of a break-through in
electricity storage technology or the integration of the UK grid with that of continental
Europe. Wind generation offers the most readily available short-term enhancement in
renewable electricity and its base cost is relatively cheap. Yet the evidence presented to
us implies that the full costs of wind generation (allowing for intermittency, back-up
conventional plant and grid connection), although declining over time, remain
significantly higher than those of conventional or nuclear generation (even before
allowing for support costs and the environmental impacts of wind farms). Furthermore,
the evidence suggests that the capacity credit of wind power (its probable power output at
the time of need) is very low; so it cannot be relied upon to meet peak demand. Thus
wind generation needs to be viewed largely as additional capacity to that which will need
to be provided, in any event, by more reliable means
Helm (2009) says that wind's problem of intermittent supply will probably lead to another
dash-for-gas or dash-for-coal in Europe, possibly with a negative impact on energy
security.
In the United States, the wind power industry has recently increased its lobbying efforts
considerably, spending about $5 million in 2009 after years of relative obscurity in
Washington.

Environmental effects

Livestock ignore wind turbines, and continue to graze as they did before wind turbines
were installed.
Compared to the environmental effects of traditional energy sources, the environmental
effects of wind power are relatively minor. Wind power consumes no fuel, and emits no
air pollution, unlike fossil fuel power sources. The energy consumed to manufacture and
transport the materials used to build a wind power plant is equal to the new energy
produced by the plant within a few months of operation. Garrett Gross, a scientist from
UMKC in Kansas City, Missouri states, "The impact made on the environment is very
little when compared to what is gained." The initial carbon dioxide emission from energy
used in the installation is "paid back" within about 2.5 years of operation for offshore
turbines.
Danger to birds and bats has been a concern in some locations. American Bird
Conservancy cites studies that indicate that about 10,000 - 40,000 birds die each year
from collisions with wind turbines in the U.S. and say that number may rise substantially
as wind capacity increases in the absence of mandatory guidelines. However, studies
show that the number of birds killed by wind turbines is very low compared to the
number of those that die as a result of certain other ways of generating electricity and
especially of the environmental impacts of using non-clean power sources. Fossil fuel
generation kills around twenty times as many birds per unit of energy produced than
wind-farms. Bat species appear to be at risk during key movement periods. Almost

nothing is known about current populations of these species and the impact on bat
numbers as a result of mortality at windpower locations. Offshore wind sites 10 km or
more from shore do not interact with bat populations. While a wind farm may cover a
large area of land, many land uses such as agriculture are compatible, with only small
areas of turbine foundations and infrastructure made unavailable for use.
Aesthetics have also been an issue. In the USA, the Massachusetts Cape Wind project
was delayed for years mainly because of aesthetic concerns. In the UK, repeated opinion
surveys have shown that more than 70% of people either like, or do not mind, the visual
impact. According to a town councillor in Ardrossan, Scotland, the overwhelming
majority of locals believe that the Ardrossan Wind Farm has enhanced the area, saying
that the turbines are impressive looking and bring a calming effect to the town.
Noise has also been an issue. In the United States, law suits and complaints have been
filed in several states, citing noise, vibrations and resulting lost property values in homes
and businesses located close to industrial wind turbines. With careful implanting of the
wind turbines, along with use of noise reducing-modifications for the wind turbines
however, these issues can be addressed.

Chapter- 2

History of Wind Power

Wind power has been used as long as humans have put sails into the wind. For more
than two millennia wind-powered machines have ground grain and pumped water. Wind
power was widely available and not confined to the banks of fast-flowing streams, or
later, requiring sources of fuel. Wind-powered pumps drained the polders of the
Netherlands. In arid regions such as the American mid-west or the Australian outback,
wind pumps provided water for live stock and steam engines.
With the development of electric power, wind power found new applications in lighting
buildings remote from centrally-generated power. Throughout the 20th century parallel
paths developed distributed small wind plants suitable for farms or residences, and larger
utility-scale wind generators that could be connected to electricity grids for remote use of
power. Today wind powered generators operate at every size between tiny plants for
battery charging at isolated residences, up to multi-megawatt wind farms that provide
electricity to national electrical networks.

Antiquity

Hero's wind-powered organ, the earliest machine powered by wind

Sailboats and sailing ships have been using wind power for at least 5,500 years, and
architects have used wind-driven natural ventilation in buildings since similarly ancient
times. The use of wind to provide mechanical power came somewhat later in antiquity.
The Babylonian emperor Hammurabi planned to use wind power for his ambitious
irrigation project in the 17th century BC.
The windwheel of the Greek engineer Heron of Alexandria in the 1st century AD is the
earliest known instance of using a wind-driven wheel to power a machine. Another early
example of a wind-driven wheel was the prayer wheel, which was used in ancient Tibet
and China since the 4th century.

Early Middle Ages

The Persian, horizontal-axis windmill

Medieval depiction of a windmill

The first practical windmills were built in Sistan, a region between Iran and Afghanistan,
since at least the 9th century, or possibly earlier in the 7th century. These "Panemone"
were vertical-axle windmills, which had long vertical driveshafts with rectangle shaped

blades. Made of six to twelve sails covered in reed matting or cloth material, these
windmills were used to grind corn and pump water, and were used in the gristmilling and
sugarcane industries. Windmills were in widespread use across the Middle East and
Central Asia, and later spread to China and India from there. Horizontal-axle windmills
were later used extensively in Northwestern Europe to grind flour beginning in the 1180s,
and many Dutch horizontal-axle windmills still exist. By 1000 AD, windmills were used
to pump seawater for salt-making in China and Sicily.
A wind-powered automata is known from the mid-8th century: wind-powered statues that
"turned with the wind over the domes of the four gates and the palace complex of the
Round City of Baghdad". The "Green Dome of the palace was surmounted by the statue
of a horseman carrying a lance that was believed to point toward the enemy. This public
spectacle of wind-powered statues had its private counterpart in the 'Abbasid palaces
where automata of various types were predominantly displayed."
Circa 3200 B.C. the ancient Egyptians invented the sail. The way a boat moves is through
the wind pushing the sail. Excluding modern times, a wind powered boat has been the
primary form of water transportation in all of human history. Some examples of
civilizations and countries that used wind powered sails follows.
Romans used passive wind power in their extensive fleets. Some ships were large enough
to carry almost a thousand tons of cargo, or a great number of passengers depending on
the length of the trip and the accommodations of the passengers.
By 1000 A.D. the Vikings had explored and conquered the North Atlantic because of the
power of the wind.

Late Middle Ages

The horizontal-axis windmills of Campo de Criptana were immortalized in chapter VIII

of Don Quixote.
The first windmills in Europe appear in sources dating to the twelfth century. These early
European windmills were horizontal-axle sunk post mills. The earliest certain reference
to such a horizontal-axle windmill dates from 1185, in Weedley, Yorkshire, although a
number of earlier but less certainly dated twelfth century European sources referring to
windmills have also been adduced. While it is sometimes argued that crusaders may have
been inspired by windmills in the Middle East, this is unlikely since the European
horizontal-axle windmills were of significantly different design than the vertical-axle
windmills of Afghanistan. Lynn White Jr., a specialist in medieval European technology,
asserts that the European windmill was an "independent invention;" he argues that it is
unlikely that the Afghanistan-style vertical-axle windmill had spread as far west as the
Levant during the Crusader period. In medieval England rights to waterpower sites were
often confined to nobility and clergy, so wind power was an important resource to a new
middle class. In addition, windmills, unlike water mills, were not rendered inoperable by
the freezing of water in the winter.
By the 14th century Dutch windmills were in use to drain areas of the Rhine River delta.

18th century

Windmills were used to pump water for salt making on the island of Bermuda, and on
Cape Cod during the American revolution.

19th century

Charles Brush wind turbine 1888

Such electric generators were used on the ships by the turn of the century. Sailing ship
"Chance", New Zealand, 1902.
In Denmark by 1900 there were about 2500 windmills for mechanical loads such as
pumps and mills, producing an estimated combined peak power of about 30 MW.
In the American midwest between 1850 and 1900, a large number, perhaps six million,
small windmills were installed on farms to operate irrigation pumps. Firms such as Star,
Eclipse, Fairbanks-Morse and Aeromotor became famed suppliers in North and South
America.
The first windmill for electricity production was built in Scotland in July 1887 by Prof
James Blyth of Anderson's College, Glasgow (the precursor of Strathclyde University).
Blyth's 33-foot (10 m) high, cloth-sailed wind turbine was installed in the garden of his
holiday cottage at Marykirk in Kincardineshire and was used to charge accumulators
developed by the Frenchman Camille Alphonse Faure, to power the lighting in the
cottage, thus making it the first house in the world to have its electricity supplied by wind
power. Blyth offered the surplus electricity to the people of Maykirk for lighting the main
street, however, they turned down the offer as they thought electricity was "the work of
the devil." Although he later built a wind machine to supply emergency power to the
local Lunatic Asylum, Infirmary and Dispensary of Montrose the invention never really
caught on as the technology was not considered to be economically viable. Across the

Atlantic, in Cleveland, Ohio a larger and heavily engineered machine was designed and
constructed in 1887-1888 by Charles F. Brush, this was built by his engineering company
at his home and operated from 1886 until 1900. The Brush wind turbine had a rotor 56
feet (17 m) in diameter and was mounted on a 60 foot (18 m) tower. Although large by
today's standards, the machine was only rated at 12 kW; it turned relatively slowly since
it had 144 blades. The connected dynamo was used either to charge a bank of batteries or
to operate up to 100 incandescent light bulbs, three arc lamps, and various motors in
Brush's laboratory. The machine fell into disuse after 1900 when electricity became
available from Cleveland's central stations, and was abandoned in 1908.
In the 1890s a Danish scientist, Poul la Cour, constructed wind turbines to generate
electricity, which was then used to produce hydrogen for experiments and light and the
Askov Highschool. His latest mill from 1896 later became the local powerplant of the
village Askov.

20th century
Development in the 20th century might be usefully divided into the periods:

1900-1973, when widespread use of individual wind generators competed against

fossil fuel plants and centrally-generated electricity
1973-onward, when the oil price crisis spurred investigation of non-petroleum
energy sources.

1900-1973

Denmark development
In Denmark wind power was an important part of a decentralized electrification in the
first quarter of the 20th century, partly because of Poul la Cour from his first practical
development in 1891 at Askov. By 1908 there were 72 wind-driven electric generators
from 5 kW to 25 kW. The largest machines were on 24 m (79 ft) towers with four-bladed
23 m (75 ft) diameter rotors. In 1957 Johannes Juul installed a 24 m diameter wind
turbine at Gedser, which ran from 1957 until 1967. This was a three-bladed, horizontalaxis, upwind, stall-regulated turbine similar to those now used for commercial wind
power development. Danish wind power development stressed incremental
improvements in capacity and efficiency based on extensive serial production of turbines,
in contrast with development models requiring extensive steps in unit size based
primarily on theoretical extrapolation. A practical consequence is that all commercial
wind turbines resemble the Danish model, a light-weight three-blade upwind design.

Farm power and isolated plants

In 1927 the brothers Joe Jacobs and Marcellus Jacobs opened a factory, Jacobs Wind in
Minneapolis to produce wind turbine generators for farm use. These would typically be

used for lighting or battery charging, on farms out of reach of central-station electricity
and distribution lines. In 30 years the firm produced about 30,000 small wind turbines,
some of which ran for many years in remote locations in Africa and on the Richard
Evelyn Byrd expedition to Antarctica. Many other manufacturers produced small wind
turbine sets for the same market, including companies called Wincharger, Miller Airlite,
Universal Aeroelectric, Paris-Dunn, Airline and Winpower.
In 1931 the Darrieus wind turbine was invented, with its vertical axis providing a
different mix of design tradeoffs from the conventional horizontal-axis wind turbine. The
vertical orientation accepts wind from any direction with no need for adjustments, and the
heavy generator and gearbox equipment can rest on the ground instead of atop a tower.
By the 1930s windmills were widely used to generate electricity on farms in the United
States where distribution systems had not yet been installed. Used to replenish battery
storage banks, these machines typically had generating capacities of a few hundred watts
to several kilowatts. Beside providing farm power, they were also used for isolated
applications such as electrifying bridge structures to prevent corrosion. In this period,
high tensile steel was cheap, and windmills were placed atop prefabricated open steel
lattice towers.
The most widely-used small wind generator produced for American farms in the 1930s
was a two-bladed horizontal-axis machine manufactured by the Wincharger Corporation.
It had a peak output of 200 watts. Blade speed was regulated by curved air brakes near
the hub that deployed at excessive rotational velocities. These machines were still being
manufactured in the United States during the 1980s. In 1936, the U.S. started a rural
electrification project that killed the natural market for wind-generated power, since
network power distribution provided a farm with more dependable usable energy for a
given amount of capital investment.
In Australia, the Dunlite Corporation built hundreds of small wind generators to provide
power at isolated postal service stations and farms. These machines were manufactured
from 1936 until 1970.

Experimental wind turbine at Nogent-le-Roi, France, 1955.

Utility-scale turbines
A forerunner of modern horizontal-axis utility-scale wind generators was the WIME-3D
in service in Balaklava, near Yalta, USSR from 1931 until 1942. This was a 100 kW
generator on a 30 m (100 ft) tower, connected to the local 6.3 kV distribution system. It
had a three-bladed 30 metre rotor on a steel lattice tower. It was reported to have an
annual load factor of 32 per cent, not much different from current wind machines.

The world's first megawatt-size wind turbine near Grandpa's Knob Summit, Castleton,
Vermont.
In 1941 the world's first megawatt-size wind turbine was connected to the local electrical
distribution system on the mountain known as Grandpa's Knob in Castleton, Vermont,
USA. It was designed by Palmer Cosslett Putnam and manufactured by the S. Morgan
Smith Company. This 1.25 MW Smith-Putnam turbine operated for 1100 hours before a
blade failed at a known weak point, which had not been reinforced due to war-time
material shortages. No similar-sized unit was to repeat this "bold experiment" for about
forty years.

Fuel-saving turbines
During the Second World War, small wind generators were used on German U-boats to
recharge submarine batteries as a fuel-conserving measure. In 1946 the lighthouse and
residences on the island Insel Neuwerk were partly powered by an 18 kW wind turbine
15 metres in diameter, to economize on diesel fuel. This installation ran for around 20
years before being replaced by a submarine cable to the mainland.

The Station d'Etude de l'Energie du Vent at Nogent-le-Roi in France operated an

experimental 800 KVA wind turbine from 1956 to 1966.

The NASA/DOE 7.5 megawatt Mod-2 three turbine cluster in Goodnoe Hills,
Washington in 1981.

Comparison of NASA wind turbines

1973-2000

Utility development and oil prices

From the mid 1970's through the mid 1980's the United States government worked with
industry to advance the technology and enable large commercial wind turbines. This
effort was led by NASA at the Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio and was an
extraordinarily successful government research and development activity. With funding
from the National Science Foundation and later the United States Department of Energy
(DOE), a total of 13 experimental wind turbines were put into operation including four
major wind turbine designs. This research and development program pioneered many of
the multi-megawatt turbine technologies in use today, including: steel tube towers,
variable-speed generators, composite blade materials, partial-span pitch control, as well
as aerodynamic, structural, and acoustic engineering design capabilities. The large wind
turbines developed under this effort set several world records for diameter and power
output. The Mod-2 wind turbine cluster produced a total of 7.5 megawatt of power in
1981. In 1987, the Mod-5B was the largest single wind turbine operating in the world
with a rotor diameter of nearly 100 meters and a rated power of 3.2 megawatts. It
demonstrated an availability of 95 percent, an unparalleled level for a new first-unit wind
turbine. The Mod-5B had the first large-scale variable speed drive train and a sectioned,
two-blade rotor that enabled easy transport of the blades.
Later, in the 1980s, California provided tax rebates for wind power. These rebates funded
the first major use of wind power for utility electricity. These machines, gathered in large
wind parks such as at Altamont Pass would be considered small and un-economic by
modern wind power development standards.

Self-sufficiency and back-to-the-land

In the 1970s many people began to desire a self-sufficient life-style. Solar cells were too
expensive for small-scale electrical generation, so some turned to windmills. At first they
built ad-hoc designs using wood and automobile parts. Most people discovered that a
reliable wind generator is a moderately complex engineering project, well beyond the
ability of most romantics. Some began to search for and rebuild farm wind generators
from the 1930s, of which Jacobs Wind Electric Company machines were especially
sought after. Hundreds of Jacobs machines were reconditioned and sold during the 1970s.
All major horizontal axis turbines today rotate the same way (clockwise) to present a
coherent view. However, early turbines rotated counter-clockwise like the old windmills,
but a shift occurred from 1978 and on. The individualist-minded blade supplier kr
made the decision to change direction in order to be distinguished from the collective
Tvind and their small wind turbines. Some of the blade customers were companies that
later evolved into Vestas, Siemens, Enercon and Nordex. Public demand required that all
turbines rotate the same way, and the success of these companies made clockwise the
new standard.
Following experience with reconditioned 1930s wind turbines, a new generation of
American manufacturers started building and selling small wind turbines not only for
battery-charging but also for interconnection to electricity networks. An early example
would be Enertech Corporation of Norwich, Vermont, which began building 1.8 kW
models in the early 1980s.
In the 1990s, as aesthetics and durability became more important, turbines were placed
atop tubular steel or reinforced concrete towers. Small generators are connected to the
tower on the ground, then the tower is raised into position. Larger generators are hoisted
into position atop the tower and there is a ladder or staircase inside the tower to allow
technicians to reach and maintain the generator, while protected from the weather.

21st century
As the 21st century began, fossil fuel was still relatively cheap, but rising concerns over
energy security, global warming, and eventual fossil fuel depletion led to an expansion of
interest in all available forms of renewable energy. The fledgling commercial wind power
industry began expanding at a robust growth rate of about 30% per year, driven by the
ready availability of large wind resources, and falling costs due to improved technology
and wind farm management. The steady run-up in oil prices after 2003 led to increasing
fears that peak oil was imminent, further increasing interest in commercial wind power.
Even though wind power generates electricity rather than liquid fuels, and thus is not an
immediate substitute for petroleum in most applications (especially transport), fears over
petroleum shortages only added to the urgency to expand wind power. Earlier oil crisis
had already caused many utility and industrial users of petroleum to shift to coal or
natural gas. Natural gas began having its own supply problems, and wind power showed
potential for replacing natural gas in electricity generation.

Year-by-year
2001:Enron, owner of Enron Wind Power Services (wind turbine manufacturing and
wind farm operation), goes bankrupt in one of the biggest and most complex bankruptcy
cases in U.S. history. General Electric buys the wind power department. (see: Enron
scandal)
2006: US$10,000 home unit can generate 80% of a typical home's needs
2007: Shawn Frayne wins the 2007 Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award for the
Windbelt, a non-turbine wind power generator that claims to produce power at 1/10 the
price per watt as turbines.
2008: Rock Port, Missouri becomes the first city in the United States to receive 100
percent of its power from wind in a project developed by Wind Capital Group.

Chapter- 3

High Altitude Wind Power

High altitude wind power (HAWP) has been imagined as a source of useful energy
since 1833 with John Etzler's vision of capturing the power of winds high in the sky by
use of tether and cable technology. An atlas of the high altitude wind power resource has
been prepared for all points on earth.
Various mechanisms are proposed for capturing the kinetic energy of winds such as kites,
kytoons, aerostats, gliders, gliders with turbines for regenerative soaring, sailplanes with
turbines, or other airfoils, including multiple-point building- or terrain-enabled holdings.
Once the mechanical energy is derived from the wind's kinetic energy, then many options
are available for using that mechanical energy: direct traction, conversion to electricity
aloft or at ground station, conversion to laser or microwave for power beaming to other
aircraft or ground receivers. Energy generated by a high-altitude system may be used
aloft or sent to the ground surface by conducting cables, mechanical force through a
tether, rotation of endless line loop, movement of changed chemicals, flow of high
pressure gases, flow of low-pressure gases, or laser or microwave power beams.

High altitude wind for power purposes

Winds at higher altitudes become steadier, more persistent, and of higher velocity.
Because power available in wind increases as the cube of velocity (the velocity-cubed
law), assuming other parameters remaining the same, doubling a wind's velocity gives
2x2x2=8 times the power; tripling the velocity gives 3x3x3=27 times the available
power. With steadier and more predictable winds, high-altitude wind has an advantage
over wind near the ground. Being able to locate HAWP to effective altitudes and using
the vertical dimension of airspace for wind farming brings further advantage using high
altitude winds for generating energy.
High altitude wind generators can be adjusted in height and position to maximize energy
return, which is impractical with fixed tower-mounted wind generators.

In each range of altitudes there are altitude-specific concerns being addressed by

researchers and developers. As altitude increases, tethers increase in length, the
temperature of the air changes, and vulnerability to atmospheric lightning changes. With
increasing altitude, exposure to liabilities increase, costs increase, turbulence exposure
changes, liklihood of having the system fly in more than one directional strata of winds
increases, and the costs of operation changes. HAWP systems that are flown must climb
through all intermediate altitudes up to final working altitudesbeing at first a low- and
then a high- altitude device.

Methods of capturing kinetic energy of high-altitude

winds
Energy can be captured from the wind by kites, kytoons, tethered gliders , tethered
sailplanes, aerostats (spherical as well as shaped kytoons), bladed turbines, airfoils, airfoil
matrices, balloons, parachutes, drogues, variable drogues, spiral airfoils, Darrieus
turbines, Magnus-effect VAWT blimps, multiple-rotor complexes, fabric Jalbert-parafoil
kites, uni-blade turbines, flipwings, tethers, bridles, string loops, wafting blades,
undulating forms, piezoelectric materials , and more.
When a scheme's purpose is to propel ships and boats , the objects tether-placed in the
wind will tend to have most of the captured energy be in useful tension in the main tether.
The aloft working bodies will be operated to maintain useful tension even while the ship
is moving. This is the method for powerkiting sports. This sector of HAWP is the most
installed method. The folklore is that Benjamin Franklin used the traction method of
HAWP. George Pocock (inventor) was a leader in tugging vehicles by traction.

Controls
HAWP aircraft need to be controlled. Solutions in built systems have control mechanisms
variously situated. Some systems are passive, or active, or a mix. When a kite steering
unit (KSU) is lofted, the KSU may be robotic and self-contained; a KSU may be operated
from the ground via radio-control by a live human operator or by smart computer
programs. Some systems have built sensors in the aircraft body that report parameters
like position, relative position to other parts. Kite control units (KCU) have involved
more than steering; tether reeling speeds and directions can be adjusted in response to
tether tensions and needs of the system during a power-generating phase or return-nonpower-generating phase. Kite control parts vary widely.

Methods of converting mechanical energy to other

forms of energy
The mechanical energy of the device may be converted to heat, sound, electricity, light,
tension, pushes, pulls, laser, microwave, chemical changes, or compression of gases.
Traction is a big direct use of the mechanical energy as in tugging cargo ships and

kiteboarders. The methods of getting the mechanical energy from the wind's kinetic
energy are several. Lighter-than-air (LTA) moored aerostats are employed as lifters of
turbines. Heavier-than-air (HTA) tethered airfoils are being used as lifters or turbines
themselves. Combinations of LTA and HTA devices in one system are being built and
flown to capture HAWP. Even a family of free-flight airborne devices are represented in
the literature that capture the kinetic energy of high altitude winds (beginning with a
description in 1967 by Richard Miller in book Without Visible Means of Support) and
a contemporary patent application by Dale C. Kramer, soaring sailplane competitor,
inventor.

Electric generator position in a HAWP system

Electricity generation is just one of the optional choices of using captured mechanical
energy; however, this option dominates the focus of professionals aiming to supply large
amounts of energy to commerce and utilities. A long array of secondary options include
tugging water turbines, pumping of water, or compressing air or hydrogen. The position
of the electric generator is a distinguishing feature among systems. Flying the generator
aloft is done in a variety of ways. Keeping the generator at the mooring region is another
large design option. The option in one system of a generator aloft and at the ground
station has been used where a small generator operates electronic devices aloft while the
ground generator is the big worker to make electricity for significant loads.

Aerostat-based HAWP
One method of keeping working HAWP systems aloft is to use buoyant aerostats whether
or not the electric generator is lifted or left on the ground. The aerostats are usually, but
not always, shaped to achieve a kiting lifting effect. Recharging leaked lifting gas
receives various solutions.

W. R. Benoit US Patent 4350897 Lighter than air wind energy conversion system
by William R. Benoit, filed Oct 24,1980, and issued: Sep 21, 1982.

The TWIND system is based on the use of a sail surface elevated by the climbing
force of an aerostatic balloon connected to the ground by a cable used also for
energy transmission. The wind present at high altitudes creates a horizontal push
on the sail which in its movement transmits this energy to the ground via the
connecting cable. At the end of its movement forward, the sail surface is reduced
allowing it to move upwind with reduced energy waste.

The Magenn aerostat is a vertical-axis wind turbine held with its axis horizontal
by bridling the axis traverse to the wind so that Magnus-effect lift obtains during
autorotation; the electricity is generated with end-hub generators.

The LTA Windpower PowerShip uses lift from both an aerostat and wings. It
operates close to neutral buoyancy and doesn't require a winch. Power is

generated by turbines with the propellers on the trailing edge of the wings. The
system is designed to be able to take off and land unattended.

Airbine proposes to lift wind turbines into the air by use of aerostats; the
electricity would return to ground loads by way of conductive tether.

Airship power turbine by William J. Mouton, Jr., and David F. Thompson: Their
system integrated the turbine within the central portion of a near-toroidal aerostat,
like putting a turbine in the hole of a aerostat donut.

Non-airborne HAWP
Conceptually, two adjacent mountains (natural or terrain-enabled) or artificial buildings
or towers (urban or artificial) could have a wind turbine suspended between them by use
of cables. When HAWP is cabled between two mountain tops across a valley, the HAWP
device is not airborne, but borne up by the cable system. No such systems are known to
be in use, though patents teach these methods. When non-cabled bridges are the
foundation for holding wind turbines high above the ground, then these are grouped with
conventional towered turbines and are outside the intent of HAWP where the tethering an
airborne system is foundational.

HAWP Safety
Lightning, aircraft traffic, emergency procedures, system inspections, visibility marking
of system parts and its tethers, electrical safety, runaway-wing procedures, over-powering
controls, appropriate mooring, and more form the safety environment for HAWP
systems.

Challenges of HAWP as an emerging industry

Why is the sky not filled with HAWP devices generating significant energy for people?
There have been several periods of high interest in HAWP before the contemporary
activity. The first period had a high focus on pulling carriages over the lands and
capturing atmospheric electricity and lightning for human use. The second period was in
the 1970s and 1980s when research and investment flourished; a drop in oil price resulted
in no significant installations of HAWP. Return on investment (ROI) has been the key
parameter; that ROI remains in focus in the current development activity while in the
background is the renewable and sustainable energy movement supporting wind power of
any kind; but HAWP must compete on ROI with conventional towered solutions.

Patents and applications for patents on HAWP

Filed with WIPO

WO 2007027765 Multi-rotor wind turbine supported by continuous central

driveshaft by Douglas Spriggs Selsam, filed August 8, 2006.
WO 2009092181 A balloon suspension high altitude wind generator apparatus
and a wind turbine generator device by LI, Quandong and LI, Yuexiu of China.
WO 2009092191 A lifting type high altitude wind generator apparatus and a
turbine generator device by LI, Quandong. amd LI, Yuexiu of China.
WO/2008/034421 Kite Power Generator by Manfred Franetzki of Germany.
WO/2008/004261 Wind system for converting energy through a vertical-axis
turbine actuated by means of kites and process for producing electric energy
through such system by Massimo Ippolito and Franco Taddei of Italy. Italy
priority date July 4, 2006. International filing date of June 13, 2007.
WO/2009/143901 Kite type sail with improved line attachment. Dec. 12, 2009
B63H 9/06 PCT/EP2008/056724 SkySails GMBH & CO. KG
WO/2008/101390 A method and a special equipment converting wind energy at
high altitude into kinetic energy on the ground. 28.08.2008 F23D 9/00
PCT/CN2008/000255 by Fuli Li. Application language: Chinese.
WO/1992020917 Free Rotor by JACK, Colin, Humphry, Bruce (one man). Colin
Jack. Colin Bruce. Colin Bruce Jack. Colin B. Jack. Multi-rotors are treated.
Faired tethers are recognized. Turbines integrated at tips of free rotor is instructed.
Weather and water flow modifications by working free rotors is described. 1992.
WO 2008/047963 Electric power generation system using hydro turbine tracted
by paraglider by Jong Chul Kim. Filed: 19 October 2006.

Filed in USA

US Patent 1495036 Means for creating emergency power for airplane radio
generator by Carlton David Palmer, filed Dec 6, 1921.
US Patent 1717552 Airship by Alpin I. Dunn, filed Jan 30, 1926.
US Patent 2368630 High altitude free-flight wind turbines charged batteries by
using potential energy to form wind by Stanley Biszak, filed June 3, 1943.
US Patent 3227398 Balloon Tether Cable by Arthur D. Struble, Jr., filed Mar 4,
1965. Streamlined tether.
US Patent 3924827 Apparatus for extracting energy from winds at significant
height above the surface by Lambros Lois, filed April 25, 1975.
US Patent 3987987 Self-erecting windmill by Peter R. Payne, Charles
McCutchen, filed January 28, 1975.
US Patent 4073516 Wind driven power plant by Alberto Kling, filed June 6,
1975.
US Patent 4076190 Apparatus for extracting energy from winds at significant
height above the surface by Lambros Lois, filed March 30, 1976.
US Patent 4084102 Wind driven, high altitude power apparatus by Charles Max
Fry, Henry W. Hise, filed March 7, 1978. (terrain enabled)
US Patent 4124182 Wind drive energy system by Arnold Loeb, filed November
14, 1977.
US Patent 4165468 Wind driven, high altitude power apparatus by Charles M. Fry
and Henry W. Hise, filed Mar 7, 1978.

US Patent 4166596 Airship power turbine by William J. Mouton, Jr., and David
F. Thompson, filed April 28, 1978.
US Patent 4207026 Tethered lighter than air turbine by Oliver J. Kushto, filed Sep
29, 1978.
US Patent 4251040 Wind driven apparatus for power generation by Miles L.
Loyd, filed Dec. 11, 1978.
US Patent 4285481 Multiple wind turbine tethered airfoil wind energy conversion
system by Lloyd I. Biscomb, filed Dec 7, 1979.
US Patent 4309006 Tethered airfoil wind energy conversion system by Lloyd I.
Biscomb, filed Jun 4, 1979.
US Patent 4350897 Lighter than air wind energy conversion system by William
R. Benoit, filed Oct 24,1980, and issued: Sep 21, 1982.
US Patent 4450364 Lighter than air wind energy conversion system utilizing a
rotating envelope by William R. Benoit, filed March 24, 1982.
US Patent 4470563 Airship-windmill by Gijsbert J. Engelsman, filed Mar 9,
1982. Fan-belt.
US Patent 4486669 Wind generator kite system by Paul F. Pugh, filed November
9, 1981.
US Patent 4491739 Airship-floated wind turbine by William K. Watson, filed Sep
27, 1982.
US Patent 4572962 Apparatus for extracting energy from winds at high altitudes
by David H. Shepard, filed April 28, 1982.
US Patent 4659940 Power generation from high altitude winds by David H.
Shepard, filed Oct 11, 1985.
US Patent 4917332 Wingtip vortex turbine by James C. Patterson, Jr., filed Oct
28, 1988.
US Patent 5056447 Rein-deer kite by Gaudencio A. Labrador, filed Oct 13, 1988.
US Patent 5150859 Wingtip Turbine by Thomas F. Ransick, filed Oct 11, 1988.
US Patent 5909859 Multi-rotor kite glider by Stephen J. Janicki, filed March 6,
1997.
US Patent 6072245 Wind-driven driving apparatus employing kites by astronaut
Wubbo Johannes Ockels, filed Nov 12, 1997.
US Patent 6254034 Tethered aircraft system for gathering energy from wind by
Howard G. Carpenter, filed Sep 20, 1999.
US Patent 6327994 Scavenger energy converter system its new applications and
its control systems by Gaudencio A. Labrador, filed Dec 23, 1997.
US Patent 6523781 Axial-mode linear wind-turbine by Gary Dean Ragner, filed
Aug 29, 2001.
US Patent 6555931 Renewable energy systems using long-stroke open-channel
reciprocating engines by John V. Mizzi, filed on Sep 14, 2001.
US Patent 6616402 Serpentine wind turbine by Douglas Spriggs Selsam, filed
June 14, 2001.
US Patent 6781254 Windmill kite by Bryan William Roberts, filed Oct 17, 2002.
US Patent 6914345 Power generation by John R Webster, filed June 23, 2003.
US Patent 6925949 Elevated sailing apparatus by Malcolm Phillips, filed Dec 31,
2002.

US Patent 7109598 Precisely controlled flying electric generators III by Bryan

William Roberts and David Hammond Shepard, filed Oct 18, 2004.
US Patent 7129596 Hovering wind turbine by Aleandro Soares Macedo, filed Oct
31, 2004.
US Patent 7183663 Precisely controlled flying electric generators by Bryan
William Roberts and David Hammond Shepard, filed Aug 17, 2004.
US Patent 7188808 Aerial wind power generation system and method by Gaylord
G. Olson, filed Feb 27, 2006.
US Patent 7275719 Wind drive apparatus for an aerial wind power generation
system Gaylord G. Olson, filed February 9, 2007.
US Patent 7287481 Launch and retrieval arrangement for an aerodynamic profile
element by Stephan Wrang and Stephan Brabeck of Hamburg, Germany, filed:
September 29, 2006.
US Patent 7317261 Power generating apparatus by Andrew Martin Rolt, assignee:
Rolls-Royce, plc; filed July 25, 2006.
US Patent 7335000 Systems and methods for tethered wind turbines by Frederick
D. Ferguson, filed May 3, 2005.
US Patent 7504741 Wind energy plant with a steerable kite by Stephan Wrage,
Stephan Brabeck, filed March 30, 2007.
US Patent 7709973 Airborne stabilized wind turbines system by Moshe Meller,
Sep 18, 2008.

Applications for patents in process in US

Application: Tether handling for airborne electricity generarators by Joseph A.

Carroll, filed July 17, 2009.
Systems and methods for tethered wind turbines by Frederick D. Ferguson, filed
Sep 10, 2009.
Airborne stabilized wind turbines systems by Moshe Meller, filed May 14, 2009.
Apparatus and method for making optimal use of a photovoltaic array on an
airborne power system by Brian J. Tillotson, filed October 14, 2008.

Timeline for HAWP

Early centuries of kiting demonstrated that the kite is a rotary engine that rotates its tether
part about its mooring point and causes hands and arms to move because of the energy
captured from higher winds into the mechanical device. The tension in the lofted devices
performs the work of lifting and pulling body parts and things. Airborne wind energy
(AWE) for HAWP was birthed th ousands of years ago; naming what happened and
developing the implied potentials of tethered aircraft for doing special works is what is
occurring in AWE HAWP. What is "low" for some workers is "high" for others.

1796 George Pocock (inventor) used traction mode to travel in vehicles over land
roads.

1827 George Pocock's book The Aeropleustic Art or 'Navigation in the Air by
the Use of Kites or Buoyant Sails' was published. The book was to be republished
again several times. The Charvolant or Kite Carriage was described. Importantly
Pocock described use of kites for land and sea travel.

1833 John Adolphus Etzler saw HAWP blossoming at least for traction.

1864? Book's chapter Kite-Ship well describes key dynamics of HAWP used for
tugging ships by kites. John Gay's: or Work for Boys. Chapter XVIII in the
Summer volume.

1943 Stanley Biszak instructed using potential energy in free-flight for converting
ambient winds impacting turbine to drive electric generator to charge batteries.

1967 Richard Miller, former editor of Soaring magazine, published book

Without Visible Means of Support that describes the feasibility of free-flight
coupled non-ground-moored kites to capture differences in wind strata to travel
across continents; such HAWP is the subject of Dale C. Kramer's contemporary
patent application.

1977 April 3, 1977, invention declared. On September 21, 1979, Douglas Selsam
notarized his kite-lifted endless chain of airfoils HAWP system, generic type that
would later show in Dutch astronaut Wubbo Ockels' device called LadderMill
described in a patent of 1997. Douglas Selsam conceived his Auto-oriented Wind
Harnessing Buoyant Aerial Tramway on April 3, 1977. On the Selsam notarized
disclosure of invention was placed a date of Sept. 20, while the notary placed the
final signing on Sept. 21, 1979. notes and drawings.

1979 Professor Bryan Roberts begins giromill gyrocopter-type HAWP wind

generator development.

1986 Bryan Roberts' AWE HAWP rotor generates electricity and lifts itself in
tethered flight.

1992 Free Rotor WO/1992020917 Free Rotor by JACK, Colin, Humphry, Bruce
(one man). Colin Jack. Colin Bruce. Multi-rotors are treated. Faired tethers are
recognized. 1992.

2001 Founding of SkySails company. As leader in ship traction HAWP, in 2010

they note having just less than 10 installations.

2002 Drachen Foundation awarded a grant to David Lang so that he would

explore the use of kites to generate practical power.

2004 Drachen Foundation had David Lang, former NASA expert, aerospace
consultant, conduct a survey-study of kite-based power generation. He published
a summary of methods in his view.

2005 HAWP conference held at AeroVironment, Pasadena, CA; attendees: Paul

MacCready, Dave Lang, Joe Hadzicki, Scott Skinner. The long meeting was
videotaped; the tape is in the archives of the Drachen Foundation, open to
researchers.

2006 on October 19: Jong Chul Kim, filed for international patent protection for
"Electric power generation system using hydro turbine tracted by paraglider." His
further studies has been for at-sea production of hydrogen and other chemicals
using HAWP tethering kite systems.

2006 Kite Sailing Symposium, Seattle, Washington, September 2830, 2006.

2006 Dr. Paul MacCready, American aeronautical engineer, Inventor of the Year
Award in 1981, publishes an influential article In Using Kites to Tap Power of
Wind.

2006 January 30: First International Workshop on Modelling and Optimization of

Power Generating Kites KITE-OPT 07 held in Belgium featured keynote speaker
astronaut Prof. Wubbo Ockels.

2006 September: A 40 kW prototype of high altitude wind genereator is tested in

Italy by Kite Gen Research Massimo Ippolito.

2007 Dave Santos demonstrated lofted Portland KiteMotor at alt-energy West

Coast Climate Convergence; the generation success was announced in HIPFiSH
Columbia-Pacific's Alternative Monthly (Aug.-Sept./2007). KiteMotor Growing
Pains

2008 Dave Santos demonstrates flipwings for AWE passive-control generator

systems.

2009 January 28, University of Texas hosted Airborne Wind Energy Seminar in
its Aerospace Engineering Department. Keynote presenter: Dave Santos of
KiteLab.

2009 Dave Santos demonstrated passive control of kite-lifted working dynamic

kite operating a string tripod to transfer kite-gained mechanical energy to a
ground-based generator via pulley and crank; this was not a reel-method scheme.

2009 Towered WECS companies open departments for AWE HAWP: Two
ground-hugging towered wind-turbine companies open AWE HAWP
departments: SpiralAirfoil Airborne and Selsam.

2009 A first international industry association was founded: Airborne Wind

Energy Industry Association

2009 August. Dr. Hong Zhang, Kyle Fitzpatrick, and other students demonstrate
working generation of electricity from powerkiting in preparation for further
academic HAWP studies at Rowan University, New Jersey.

2009 Nov. 5-6 : HAWP conferece in Chico, CA and Oroville, CA. Scores of
HAWP and AWE companies and inventors attended. Systems demonstrated:
KiteLab's lifted bladed turbine with generator aloft, Selsam multi-rotor torquetube hybrid with groundstationed generator, SkyMill Energy autogiro RCcontrolled reel-in-out method.

2009 Dec. 9 : TU Delft University holds Kite Dynamics Symposium 09 for

HAWP as central focus.

2010 January 13. An announcement that a large investment will be made to

construct a commercial utility-scale HAWP project in the city of Foshan, China.

2010 March 13: Three HAWP companies had booths at ARPA-E Technology
Showcase, Gaylord Convention Center, Washington, DC. Investment and
showcasing by HAWP entities: Joby Energy, Sky Windpower, Makani Power
directed visitors to each other's booths.

2010 March 6. Eight airborne wind energy technology entity leaders in USA held
a telephone conference and decided without objection to propose a modification
to bill HR 3165 ; the primary line-item proposed modification entered to a
congressional member was the inclusion of "airborne wind energy technology."

2010 April 24. Multiple chaotic systems effectively captured for useful work: Full
demonstration of working mini-AWECS involving Double Pendulum and
flapping kite wing-mill under lifter kite to drive clockworks system's charging
lithium battery by KiteLab of Ilwaco, Washington, USA. Designer and builder:
Dave Santos.

2010 Another international organization has been formed: Airborne Wind Energy
Consortium

2010 May: USA's NASA firms attention on AWECS by establishing an AWT

data web site: NASA Wind Energy Airborne Harvesting Stystem Study. The
NASA 2010 Innovation Fund selected Airborne Wind Turbine Energy Harvesting
UAV Systems; project leader is Dr. Mark D. Moore, Aeronautics Systems.

2010, June 16 An international partnership between Dutch and Norwegian

entities provides second-round financing for classic reel-in HAWP method using

tethered powerplane system. Airborne wind energy technology firm Ampyx

Power partners with Byte and Statkraft.

16 June 2010 A unique treasure of 700+ drawings by airborne wind energy

techologist Dave Santos made from 2006 and into 2009 were made available to
the public. Seven-hundred pages of drawings made from 2006 into 2009 by hand
and mind of Dave Santos Alternate full name: David Santos Gorena-Guinn,
roboticist, artist, founder of KiteLab, master instructor for KitePilotSchool, and
chief technical officer for Airborne Wind Energy Industry Association (AWEIA).

2010 July 9: World's First Gondola Turbine Array Demo by KiteLab.

2010 September 2930 Airborne Wind Energy Conference 2010. This

complements the 2009 November first major international conference.

2010 October: The Wayne German Prize for Contributions to Airborne Wind
Energy stated its second year awardee.

2010 November 25: CONOPS are being drafted by KiteLab, Ilwaco, WA, USA,
and also NASA AWT project leader for submission to the USA's FAA toward
obtaining response for potentially having airborne wind energy conversion
systems as an integral part of aviation and air space.

Chapter- 4

Wind Turbine

Offshore wind farm using 5MW turbines REpower M5 in the North Sea off Belgium

A wind turbine is a device that converts kinetic energy from the wind into mechanical
energy. If the mechanical energy is used to produce electricity, the device may be called a
wind generator or wind charger. If the mechanical energy is used to drive machinery,
such as for grinding grain or pumping water, the device is called a windmill or wind
pump.

History

James Blyth's electricity generating wind turbine photographed in 1891

Windmills were used in Persia (present-day Iran) as early as 200 B.C. The windwheel of
Heron of Alexandria marks one of the first known instances of wind powering a machine
in history. However, the first practical windmills were built in Sistan, a region between
Afghanistan and Iran, from the 7th century. These "Panemone" were vertical axle
windmills, which had long vertical driveshafts with rectangular blades. Made of six to
twelve sails covered in reed matting or cloth material, these windmills were used to grind
corn or draw up water, and were used in the gristmilling and sugarcane industries.
Windmills first appeared in Europe during the middle ages The first historical records for
their use in England date to the 11th or 12th centuries and there are reports of German
crusaders taking their windmill-making skills to Syria around 1190. By the 14th century,
Dutch windmills were in use to drain areas of the Rhine delta.

The first automatically operated wind turbine, built in Cleveland in 1887 by Charles F.
Brush. It was 60 feet (18 m) tall, weighed 4 tons (3.6 metric tonnes) and powered a 12kW
generator.
The first electricity generating wind turbine, was a battery charging machine installed in
July 1887 by Scottish academic, James Blyth to light his holiday home in Marykirk,
Scotland. Some months later American inventor Charles F Brush built the first
automatically operated wind turbine for electricity production in Cleveland, Ohio.
Although Blyth's turbine was considered uneconomical in the United Kingdom electricity
generation by wind turbines was more cost effective in countries with widely scattered
populations. In Denmark by 1900, there were about 2500 windmills for mechanical loads
such as pumps and mills, producing an estimated combined peak power of about 30 MW.
The largest machines were on 24-metre (79 ft) towers with four-bladed 23-metre (75 ft)

diameter rotors. By 1908 there were 72 wind-driven electric generators operating in the
US from 5 kW to 25 kW. Around the time of World War I, American windmill makers
were producing 100,000 farm windmills each year, mostly for water-pumping. By the
1930s, windmills for electricity were common on farms, mostly in the United States
where distribution systems had not yet been installed. In this period, high-tensile steel
was cheap, and windmills were placed atop prefabricated open steel lattice towers.

Enercon E-126, highest rated capacity

A forerunner of modern horizontal-axis wind generators was in service at Yalta, USSR in
1931. This was a 100 kW generator on a 30-metre (98 ft) tower, connected to the local
6.3 kV distribution system. It was reported to have an annual capacity factor of 32 per
cent, not much different from current wind machines. In the fall of 1941, the first
megawatt-class wind turbine was synchronized to a utility grid in Vermont. The SmithPutnam wind turbine only ran for 1,100 hours before suffering a critical failure. Due to
war time material shortages the unit was not repaired.
The first utility grid-connected wind turbine to operate in the U.K. was built by John
Brown & Company in 1951 in the Orkney Islands. It had an 18-metre (59 ft) diameter,
three-bladed rotor and a rated output of 100 kW.

Resources
A quantitative measure of the wind energy available at any location is called the Wind
Power Density (WPD) It is a calculation of the mean annual power available per square
meter of swept area of a turbine, and is tabulated for different heights above ground.
Calculation of wind power density includes the effect of wind velocity and air density.
Color-coded maps are prepared for a particular area described, for example, as "Mean
Annual Power Density at 50 Meters." In the United States, the results of the above
calculation are included in an index developed by the U.S. National Renewable Energy
Lab and referred to as "NREL CLASS." The larger the WPD calculation, the higher it is
rated by class. Classes range from Class 1 (200 watts/square meter or less at 50 meters
altitude) to Class 7 (800 to 2000 watts/square meter). Commercial wind farms generally
are sited in Class 3 or higher areas, although isolated points in an otherwise Class 1 area
may be practical to exploit.

Fuhrlnder Wind Turbine Laasow, world's tallest

Types
Wind turbines can rotate about either a horizontal or a vertical axis, the former being both
older and more common.

The three primary types:VAWT Savonius, HAWT towered; VAWT Darrieus as they
appear in operation.

Horizontal axis

Components of a horizontal axis wind turbine (gearbox, rotor shaft and brake assembly)
being lifted into position
Horizontal-axis wind turbines (HAWT) have the main rotor shaft and electrical generator
at the top of a tower, and must be pointed into the wind. Small turbines are pointed by a
simple wind vane, while large turbines generally use a wind sensor coupled with a servo
motor. Most have a gearbox, which turns the slow rotation of the blades into a quicker
rotation that is more suitable to drive an electrical generator.
Since a tower produces turbulence behind it, the turbine is usually positioned upwind of
its supporting tower. Turbine blades are made stiff to prevent the blades from being
pushed into the tower by high winds. Additionally, the blades are placed a considerable
distance in front of the tower and are sometimes tilted forward into the wind a small
amount.

The School of Sustainability at Arizona State University

Wind turbines on the roof a building off Mount Auburn Street in Cambridge,
Massachusetts

Co-operative Insurance building, Manchester, with wind turbines on roof

Downwind machines have been built, despite the problem of turbulence (mast wake),
because they don't need an additional mechanism for keeping them in line with the wind,
and because in high winds the blades can be allowed to bend which reduces their swept
area and thus their wind resistance. Since cyclical (that is repetitive) turbulence may lead
to fatigue failures, most HAWTs are of upwind design.
Modern wind turbines

Turbine blade convoy passing through Edenfield in the UK

Turbines used in wind farms for commercial production of electric power are usually
three-bladed and pointed into the wind by computer-controlled motors. These have high
tip speeds of over 320 kilometres per hour (200 mph), high efficiency, and low torque
ripple, which contribute to good reliability. The blades are usually colored light gray to
blend in with the clouds and range in length from 20 to 40 metres (66 to 130 ft) or more.
The tubular steel towers range from 60 to 90 metres (200 to 300 ft) tall. The blades rotate
at 10-22 revolutions per minute. At 22 rotations per minute the tip speed exceeds 300 feet
per second (91 m/s). A gear box is commonly used for stepping up the speed of the
generator, although designs may also use direct drive of an annular generator. Some
models operate at constant speed, but more energy can be collected by variable-speed
turbines which use a solid-state power converter to interface to the transmission system.
All turbines are equipped with protective features to avoid damage at high wind speeds,
by feathering the blades into the wind which ceases their rotation, supplemented by
brakes.

ole, the largest vertical axis wind turbine, in Cap-Chat, Quebec

Vertical axis design

Vertical-axis wind turbines (or VAWTs) have the main rotor shaft arranged vertically.
Key advantages of this arrangement are that the turbine does not need to be pointed into
the wind to be effective. This is an advantage on sites where the wind direction is highly
variable.
With a vertical axis, the generator and gearbox can be placed near the ground, so the
tower doesn't need to support it, and it is more accessible for maintenance. Drawbacks
are that some designs produce pulsating torque.

It is difficult to mount vertical-axis turbines on towers , meaning they are often installed
nearer to the base on which they rest, such as the ground or a building rooftop. The wind
speed is slower at a lower altitude, so less wind energy is available for a given size
turbine. Air flow near the ground and other objects can create turbulent flow, which can
introduce issues of vibration, including noise and bearing wear which may increase the
maintenance or shorten the service life. However, when a turbine is mounted on a
rooftop, the building generally redirects wind over the roof and this can double the wind
speed at the turbine. If the height of the rooftop mounted turbine tower is approximately
50% of the building height, this is near the optimum for maximum wind energy and
minimum wind turbulence.

Subtypes

Darrieus wind turbine of 30 m in the Magdalen Islands

Darrieus wind turbine

"Eggbeater" turbines, or Darrieus turbines, were named after the French inventor,
Georges Darrieus. They have good efficiency, but produce large torque ripple and
cyclical stress on the tower, which contributes to poor reliability. They also
generally require some external power source, or an additional Savonius rotor to
start turning, because the starting torque is very low. The torque ripple is reduced
by using three or more blades which results in a higher solidity for the rotor.
Solidity is measured by blade area divided by the rotor area. Newer Darrieus type
turbines are not held up by guy-wires but have an external superstructure
connected to the top bearing.
Giromill
A subtype of Darrieus turbine with straight, as opposed to curved, blades. The
cycloturbine variety has variable pitch to reduce the torque pulsation and is selfstarting. The advantages of variable pitch are: high starting torque; a wide,
relatively flat torque curve; a lower blade speed ratio; a higher coefficient of
performance; more efficient operation in turbulent winds; and a lower blade speed
ratio which lowers blade bending stresses. Straight, V, or curved blades may be
used.
Savonius wind turbine
These are drag-type devices with two (or more) scoops that are used in
anemometers, Flettner vents (commonly seen on bus and van roofs), and in some
high-reliability low-efficiency power turbines. They are always self-starting if
there are at least three scoops. They sometimes have long helical scoops to give a
smooth torque.

Turbine design and construction

Components of a horizontal-axis wind turbine

Wind turbines are designed to exploit the wind energy that exists at a location.
Aerodynamic modeling is used to determine the optimum tower height, control systems,
number of blades and blade shape.
Wind turbines convert wind energy to electricity for distribution. Conventional horizontal
axis turbines can be divided into three components.

The rotor component, which is approximately 20% of the wind turbine cost,
includes the blades for converting wind energy to low speed rotational energy.
The generator component, which is approximately 34% of the wind turbine cost,
includes the electrical generator, the control electronics, and most likely a gearbox
(e.g. planetary gearbox, adjustable-speed drive or continuously variable
transmission) component for converting the low speed incoming rotation to high
speed rotation suitable for generating electricity.
The structural support component, which is approximately 15% of the wind
turbine cost, includes the tower and rotor yaw mechanism.

Highest-situated wind turbine, at the Veladero mine in San Juan Province, Argentina

Unconventional wind turbines

One E-66 wind turbine at Windpark Holtriem, Germany, carries an observation deck,
open for visitors. Another turbine of the same type, with an observation deck, is located
in Swaffham, England. Airborne wind turbines have been investigated many times but
have yet to produce significant energy. Conceptually, wind turbines may also be used in
conjunction with a large vertical solar updraft tower to extract the energy due to air
heated by the sun.
Wind turbines which utilise the Magnus effect have been developed.

Small wind turbines

Small wind turbines may be as small as a fifty-watt generator for boat or caravan use.
Small units often have direct drive generators, direct current output, aeroelastic blades,
lifetime bearings and use a vane to point into the wind.
Larger, more costly turbines generally have geared power trains, alternating current
output, flaps and are actively pointed into the wind. Direct drive generators and
aeroelastic blades for large wind turbines are being researched.

Record-holding turbines
Largest capacity
The Enercon E-126 has a rated capacity of 7.58 MW , has an overall height of 198 m
(650 ft), a diameter of 126 m (413 ft), and is the world's largest-capacity wind turbine
since its introduction in 2007.
At least four companies are working on the development of a 10MW turbine:

American Superconductor
Wind Power Ltd are developing a 10 MW VAWT, the Aerogenerator X
Clipper Windpower are developing the Britannia 10 MW HAWT
Sway announced the proposed development of a prototype 10 MW wind turbine
with a height of 162.5 m (533 ft) and a rotor diameter of 145 m (475 ft).

Largest swept area

The turbine with the largest swept area is a prototype installed by Gamesa at Jauln,
Zaragoza, Spain in 2009. The G10X 4.5 MW has a rotor diameter of 128m.

Tallest

The tallest wind turbine is Fuhrlnder Wind Turbine Laasow. Its axis is 160 meters above
ground and its rotor tips can reach a height of 205 meters. It is the only wind turbine
taller than 200 meters in the world.

Largest vertical-axis
Le Nordais wind farm in Cap-Chat, Quebec has a vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT)
named ole, which is the world's largest at 110 m. It has a nameplate capacity of 3.8MW.

Rnland, most productive turbines, in Denmark

Most southerly
The turbines currently operating closest to the South Pole are three Enercon E-33 in
Antarctica, powering New Zealand's Scott Base and the United States' McMurdo Station
since December 2009 although a modified HR3 turbine from Northern Power Systems
operated at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in 1997 and 1998. In March 2010
CITEDEF designed, built and installed a wind turbine in Argentine Marambio Base.

Most productive
Four turbines at Rnland wind farm in Denmark share the record for the most productive
wind turbines, with each having generated 63.2 GWh by June 2010

Highest-situated
The world's highest-situated wind turbine is made by DeWind and located in the Andes,
Argentina around 4,100 metres (13,500 ft) above sea level. The site uses a type D8.2 2000 kW / 50 Hz turbine. This turbine has a new drive train concept with a special torque
converter (WinDrive) made by Voith and a synchronous generator. The WKA was put
into operation in December 2007 and has supplied the Veladero mine of Barrick Gold
with electricity since then.

Chapter- 5

Floating Wind Turbine

The worlds first full-scale floating wind turbine, Hywind, being assembled in the my
Fjord near Stavanger, Norway, before deployment in the North Sea.
A floating wind turbine is an offshore wind turbine mounted on a floating structure that
allows the turbine to generate electricity in water depths where bottom-mounted towers
are not feasible. The wind can be stronger and steadier over water due to the absence of
topographic features that may disrupt wind flow. The electricity generated is sent to shore
through undersea cables. The initial capital cost of floating turbines is competitive with
bottom-mounted, near-shore wind turbines while the rate of energy generation is higher
out in the sea as the wind flow is often more steady and unobstructed by terrain features.
The relocation of wind farms into the sea can reduce visual pollution if the windmills are

sited more than 12 miles (19 km) offshore, provide better accommodation of fishing and
shipping lanes, and allow siting near heavily developed coastal cities.
Floating wind parks are wind farms that site several floating wind turbines closely
together to take advantage of common infrastructure such as power transmission
facilities.

History
The concept for "large-scale offshore floating wind turbines was introduced by Professor
William E. Heronemus at the University of Massachusetts in 1972. [I]t was not until the
mid 1990s, after the commercial wind industry was well established, that the topic was
taken up again by the mainstream research community." As of 2003, existing offshore
fixed-bottom wind turbine technology deployments had been limited to water depths of
30-meters. Worldwide deep-water wind resources are extremely abundant in subsea areas
with depths up to 600 meters, which are thought to best facilitate transmission of the
generated electric power to shore communities.

Operational deep-water platforms

A tension leg mooring system as used by Blue H: left-hand tower-bearing structure (grey)
is free floating, the right-hand structure is pulled by the tensioned cables (red) down
towards the seabed anchors (light-grey)
As of 2009, there have been only two operational floating wind turbines used to farm
wind energy over deep-water. Blue H deployed the first floating wind turbine
113 kilometres (70 mi) off of the coast of Italy in December, 2007. It was then
decommissioned at the end of 2008 after completing a planned test year of gathering
operational data.
The first large-capacity, 2.3 megawatt floating wind turbine is Hywind, which became
operational in the North Sea off of Norway in September, 2009 and is still operational as
of October 2009.

Blue H Technologies
Blue H Technologies of the Netherlands operated the first floating wind turbine, a
prototype deep-water platform with an 80-kilowatt turbine off of Puglia, southeast Italy
in 2008. Installed 21 km off the coast in waters 113 meters deep in order to gather test
data on wind and sea conditions, the small prototype unit was decommissioned at the end
of 2008. Blue H has successfully decommissioned the unit as it embarks on plans to build
a 38-unit deepwater wind farm at the same location.
The Blue H technology utilizes a tension-leg platform design and a two-bladed turbine.
The two-bladed design can have a "much larger chord, which allows a higher tip speed
than those of three-bladers. The resulting increased background noise of the two-blade
rotor is not a limiting factor for offshore sites."
As of 2009, Blue H is building the first full-scale commercial 2.4 MWe unit in Brindisi,
Italy which it expects to deploy at the same site of the prototype in the southern Adriatic
Sea in 2010. This is the first unit in the planned 90 MW Tricase offshore wind farm,
located more than 20 km off the Puglia coast line.

Hywind

A single floating cylindrical spar buoy moored by catenary cables. Hywind uses a
ballasted catenary layout that adds 60 tonne weights hanging from the midpoint of each
anchor cable to provide additional tension.
The world's first operational deep-water floating large-capacity wind turbine is the
Hywind, in the North Sea off of Norway. The Hywind was towed out to sea in early June
2009. The 2.3 megawatt turbine was constructed by Siemens Wind Power and mounted
on a floating tower with a 100 metre deep draft. The float tower was constructed by
Technip, and Nowitech contributed to the design. Nowitech (Norwegian Research Centre
for Offshore Wind Technology) is a consortium of 30 members, including SINTEF and
the Norwegian University of Science and Technology at Trondheim. Statoil says that
floating wind turbines are still immature and commercialization is distant.
The installation is owned by Statoil and will be tested for two years. After assembly in
the calmer waters of my Fjord near Stavanger, Norway, the 120-meter-tall tower with
a 2.3 MW turbine was towed 10 km offshore into 220-meter-deep water, 10 km
southwest of Karmy, on 6 June 2009 for a two year test deployment." Alexandra Beck
Gjorv of Statoil said, "[The experiment] should help move offshore wind farms out of
sight ... The global market for such turbines is potentially enormous, depending on how
low we can press costs." The unit became operational in the summer of 2009. Hywind
was inaugurated on 8 September 2009. As of October 2010, after a full year of operation,
the Hywind turbine is still operating and generating electricity for the Norwegian grid.
The turbine cost 400 million kroner (around US$62 million) to build and deploy. The 13kilometer (8-mile) long submarine power transmission cable was installed in July, 2009
and system test including rotor blades and initial power transmission was conducted
shortly thereafter. The installation is expected to generate about 9 GWh of electricity
annually. The SWATH (Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull), a new class of offshore wind
turbine service boat, will be tested at Hywind.

Topologies
Platform topologies can be classified into:

single-turbine-floater (one wind turbine mounted on a floating structure)

multiple turbine floaters (multiple wind turbines mounted on a floating structure)

Engineering considerations
Undersea mooring of floating wind turbines are accomplished with three principal
mooring systems. Two common types of engineered design for anchoring floating
structures include tension-leg and catenary loose mooring systems. Tension leg mooring
systems have vertical tethers under tension providing large restoring moments in pitch
and roll. Catenary mooring systems provide station keeping for an offshore structure yet

provide little stiffness at low tensions." A third form of mooring system is the ballasted
catenary configuration, created by adding multiple-tonne weights hanging from the
midsection of each anchor cable in order to provide additional cable tension and therefore
increase stiffness of the above-water floating structure.

Economics
"Technically, the [theoretical] feasibility of deepwater [floating] wind turbines is not
questioned as long-term survivability of floating structures has already been successfully
demonstrated by the marine and offshore oil industries over many decades. However, the
economics that allowed the deployment of thousands of offshore oil rigs have yet to be
demonstrated for floating wind turbine platforms. For deepwater wind turbines, a floating
structure will replace pile-driven monopoles or conventional concrete bases that are
commonly used as foundations for shallow water and land-based turbines. The floating
structure must provide enough buoyancy to support the weight of the turbine and to
restrain pitch, roll and heave motions within acceptable limits. The capital costs for the
wind turbine itself will not be significantly higher than current marinized turbine costs in
shallow water. Therefore, the economics of deepwater wind turbines will be determined
primarily by the additional costs of the floating structure and power distribution system,
which are offset by higher offshore winds and close proximity to large load centers (e.g.
shorter transmission runs)."
As of 2009 however, the economic feasibility of shallow-water offshore wind
technologies is more completely understood. With empirical data obtained from fixedbottom installations off many countries for over a decade now, representative costs are
well understood. Shallow-water turbines cost between 2.4 and 3 million United States
dollars per megawatt to install, according to the World Energy Council.
As of 2009, the practical feasibility and per-unit economics of deep-water, floatingturbine offshore wind is yet to be seen. Initial deployment of single full-capacity turbines
in deep-water locations began only in 2009.
As of October 2010, new feasibility studies are supporting that floating turbines are
becoming both technically and economically viable in the UK and global energy markets.
"The higher up-front costs associated with developing floating wind turbines would be
offset by the fact that they would be able to access areas of deep water off the coastlne of
the UK where winds are stronger and reliable."
The recent Offshore Valuation study conducted in the UK has confirmed that using just
one third of the UK's wind, wave and tidal resource could generate energy equivalent to 1
billion barrels of oil per year; the same as North Sea oil and gas production. Some of the
primary challenges are the coordination needed to develop transmission lines.

Proposals

Floating wind farms

The US State of Maine solicited proposals in September 2010 to build the world's first
floating, commercial wind farm. The RFP is seeking proposals for 25 MW of deep-water
offshore wind capacity to supply power for 20-year long-term contract period via gridconnected floating wind turbines in the Gulf of Maine. Successful bidders must enter into
long-term power supply contracts with either Central Maine Power Company (CMP),
Bangor Hydro-Electric Company (BHE), or Maine Public Service Company (MPS).
Proposals are due by May 2011.
Some vendors who could bid on the proposed project have expressed concerns about
dealing with the United States regulatory environment. Since the proposed site is in
Federal waters, developers would need a permit from the Minerals Management Service,
"which took more than seven years to approve a yet-to-be-built, shallow-water wind
project off Cape Cod," and is also the agency under fire in June 2010 for lax oversight of
deepwater oil drilling in Federal waters. "Uncertainty over regulatory hurdles in the
United States ... is 'the Achilles heel' for Maine's ambitions for deepwater wind."

Floating design concepts

WindFloat
WindFloat is a patent pending floating foundation for offshore wind turbines aimed at
improving dynamic stability. The WindFloat design is intended to dampen wave and
turbine induced motion utilizing a tri-column triangular platform with the wind turbine
positioned on only one of the three columns. The triangular platform is then "moored
with 6 lines, 4 of which are connected to the column stabilizing the turbine, thus creating
an asymmetric" mooring to increase stability and reduce motion. This technology could
allow wind turbines to be sited in offshore areas that were previously considered
inaccessible, areas having water depth exceeding 50 meters and more powerful wind
resources than shallow-water offshore wind farms typically encounter.
As of 2010, Principle Power and electricity provider Energias de Portugal is utilizing the
WindFloat design to construct a "three-legged floating foundation designed to
accommodate any 5 MW turbine." Completion of construction and installation off of
Portugal is expected by the end of summer 2012. Construction cost is expected to be
below $30 million.

Nautica Windpower

Nautica Windpower's AFT design features a downwind two-bladed rotor with passive
wind alignment to reduce costs
Nautica Windpower uses a patented technology aimed at reducing system weight,
complexity and costs for deep water sites. Scale model tests in open water have been
conducted and structural dynamics modeling is under development for a multi-megawatt
design. Nautica Windpower's Asymmetric Floating Tower (AFT) uses a single mooring
line and a downwind two-bladed rotor configuration that is deflection tolerant and aligns
itself with the wind without an active yaw system. Two-bladed, downwind turbine
designs that can accommodate flexibility in the blades will potentially prolong blade
lifetime, diminish structural system loads and reduce offshore maintenance needs,
yielding lower lifecycle costs.

OC3-Hywind
The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), under the auspices of their Offshore
Code Comparison Collaboration (OC3) initiative, has completed high-level design and
simulation modeling of the OC-3 Hywind system, a 5-MW wind turbine installed on a
floating spar buoy, moored with catenary mooring lines, in water depth of 320 meters.
The spar buoy platform would extend 120 meters below the surface and the mass of such
a system, including ballast would exceed 7.4 million kg.

DeepWind
Ris and 11 international partners started a 4-year program called DeepWind in October
2010 to create and test economical floating Vertical Axis Wind Turbines up to 20MW.
The program is supported with 3m through EUs Seventh Framework Programme.
Partners include TUDelft, SINTEF, Statoil and United States National Renewable Energy
Laboratory.

Chapter- 6

Darrieus Wind Turbine

Fig. 1: A Darrieus wind turbine once used to generate electricity on the Magdalen Islands

The Darrieus wind turbine is a type of vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) used to
generate electricity from the energy carried in the wind. The turbine consists of a number
of aerofoils usually--but not always--vertically mounted on a rotating shaft or framework.
This design of wind turbine was patented by Georges Jean Marie Darrieus, a French
aeronautical engineer in 1931.
The Darrieus type is theoretically just as efficient as the propeller type if wind speed is
constant, but in practice this efficiency is rarely realised due to the physical stresses and
limitations imposed by a practical design and wind speed variation. There are also major
difficulties in protecting the Darrieus turbine from extreme wind conditions and in
making it self-starting.

Method of Operation

Fig. 2: A very large Darrieus wind turbine on the Gasp peninsula, Quebec, Canada

Combined Darrieus-Savonius generator in Taiwan

In the original versions of the Darrieus design, the aerofoils are arranged so that they are
symmetrical and have zero rigging angle, that is, the angle that the aerofoils are set
relative to the structure on which they are mounted. This arrangement is equally effective
no matter which direction the wind is blowing -- in contrast to the conventional type,
which must be rotated to face into the wind.
When the Darrieus rotor is spinning, the aerofoils are moving forward through the air in a
circular path. Relative to the blade, this oncoming airflow is added vectorially to the
wind, so that the resultant airflow creates a varying small positive angle of attack (AoA)
to the blade. This generates a net force pointing obliquely forwards along a certain 'lineof-action'. This force can be projected inwards past the turbine axis at a certain distance,

giving a positive torque to the shaft, thus helping it to rotate in the direction it is already
travelling in. The aerodynamic principles which rotate the rotor are equivalent to that in
autogiros, and normal helicopters in autorotation.
As the aerofoil moves around the back of the apparatus, the angle of attack changes to the
opposite sign, but the generated force is still obliquely in the direction of rotation,
because the wings are symmetrical and the rigging angle is zero. The rotor spins at a rate
unrelated to the windspeed, and usually many times faster. The energy arising from the
torque and speed may be extracted and converted into useful power by using an electrical
generator.
The aeronautical terms lift and drag are, strictly speaking, forces across and along the
approaching net relative airflow respectively, so they are not useful here. We really want
to know the tangential force pulling the blade around, and the radial force acting against
the bearings.
When the rotor is stationary, no net rotational force arises, even if the wind speed rises
quite high -- the rotor must already be spinning to generate torque. Thus the design is not
normally self starting. Under rare conditions, Darrieus rotors can self-start, so some form
of brake is required to hold it when stopped.
One problem with the design is that the angle of attack changes as the turbine spins, so
each blade generates its maximum torque at two points on its cycle (front and back of the
turbine). This leads to a sinusoidal (pulsing) power cycle that complicates design. In
particular, almost all Darrieus turbines have resonant modes where, at a particular
rotational speed, the pulsing is at a natural frequency of the blades that can cause them to
(eventually) break. For this reason, most Darrieus turbines have mechanical brakes or
other speed control devices to keep the turbine from spinning at these speeds for any
lengthy period of time.
Another problem arises because the majority of the mass of the rotating mechanism is at
the periphery rather than at the hub, as it is with a propeller. This leads to very high
centrifugal stresses on the mechanism, which must be stronger and heavier than
otherwise to withstand them. One common approach to minimise this is to curve the
wings into an "egg-beater" shape (this is called a "troposkein" shape, derived from the
Greek for "the shape of a spun rope") such that they are self supporting and do not require
such heavy supports and mountings. See. Fig. 1.
In this configuration, the Darrieus design is theoretically less expensive than a
conventional type, as most of the stress is in the blades which torque against the generator
located at the bottom of the turbine. The only forces that need to be balanced out
vertically are the compression load due to the blades flexing outward (thus attempting to
"squeeze" the tower), and the wind force trying to blow the whole turbine over, half of
which is transmitted to the bottom and the other half of which can easily be offset with
guy wires.

By contrast, a conventional design has all of the force of the wind attempting to push the
tower over at the top, where the main bearing is located. Additionally, one cannot easily
use guy wires to offset this load, because the propeller spins both above and below the
top of the tower. Thus the conventional design requires a strong tower that grows
dramatically with the size of the propeller. Modern designs can compensate most tower
loads of that variable speed and variable pitch.
In overall comparison, while there are some advantages in Darrieus design there are
many more disadvantages, especially with bigger machines in MW class. The Darrieus
design uses much more expensive material in blades while most of the blade is too near
of ground to give any real power. Traditional designs assume that wing tip is at least 40m
from ground at lowest point to maximize energy production and life time. So far there is
no known material (not even carbon fiber) which can meet cyclic load requirements.

Giromills

Fig 3: A Giromill-type wind turbine

Darrieus's 1927 patent also covered practically any possible arrangement using vertical
airfoils. One of the more common types is the Giromill or H-bar design, in which the
long "egg beater" blades of the common Darrieus design are replaced with straight
vertical blade sections attached to the central tower with horizontal supports. The
Giromill blade design is much simpler to build, but results in a more massive structure
than the traditional arrangement, and requires stronger blades, for reasons outlined above.

Cycloturbines

Another variation of the Giromill is the Cycloturbine, in which each blade is mounted so
that it can rotate around its own own vertical axis. This allows the blades to be "pitched"
so that they always have some angle of attack relative to the wind. The main advantage to
this design is that the torque generated remains almost constant over a fairly wide angle,
so a Cycloturbine with three or four blades has a fairly constant torque. Over this range of
angles, the torque itself is near the maximum possible, meaning that the system also
generates more power. The Cycloturbine also has the advantage of being able to self start,
by pitching the "downwind moving" blade flat to the wind to generate drag and start the
turbine spinning at a low speed. On the downside, the blade pitching mechanism is
complex and generally heavy, and some sort of wind-direction sensor needs to be added
in order to pitch the blades properly.

Fig 4: Schematic of mass-stabilised pitch control system.

A schematic of a self-acting pitch control system that does not require a wind-direction
system is shown in Figure 4.

Helical blades
The blades of a Darrieus turbine can be canted into a helix, e.g. three blades and a helical
twist of 60 degrees, similar to Gorlov's water turbines. Since the wind pulls each blade
around on both the windward and leeward sides of the turbine, this feature spreads the
torque evenly over the entire revolution, thus preventing destructive pulsations. The
skewed leading edges reduce resistance to rotation; by providing a second turbine above
the first, with oppositely directed helices, the axial wind-forces cancel, thereby
minimizing wear on the shaft bearings. Another advantage is that the blades generate
torque well from upward-slanting airflow, such as occurs above roofs and cliffs. This
design is used by the Turby and Quiet Revolution brands of wind turbine.

Chapter- 7

Unconventional Wind Turbines

As of 2010, the most common type of wind turbine is the three-bladed horizontal-axis
wind turbine (HAWT).

Wattle Point Wind Farm's information centre

Modified HAWT
Ducted rotor
Still something of a research project, the ducted rotor consists of a turbine inside a duct
which flares outwards at the back. They are also referred as Diffuser-Augmented Wind
Turbines (i.e. DAWT). The main advantage of the ducted rotor is that it can operate in a
wide range of winds and generate a higher power per unit of rotor area. Another
advantage is that the generator operates at a high rotation rate, so it doesn't require a
bulky gearbox, so the mechanical portion can be smaller and lighter. A disadvantage is
that (apart from the gearbox) it is more complicated than the unducted rotor and the duct
is usually quite heavy, which puts an added load on the tower. The olienne Bolle is an
example of a DAWT.

WindShare 750 kW, direct drive, Lagerwey Wind model LW 52 wind turbine in Toronto,
Ontario

Co-axial, multi-rotor horizontal-axis turbines

Two or more rotors may be mounted to the same driveshaft, with their combined corotation together turning the same generator fresh wind is brought to each rotor by
sufficient spacing between rotors combined with an offset angle (alpha) from the wind
direction. Wake vorticity is recovered as the top of a wake hits the bottom of the next
rotor. Power has been multiplied several times using co-axial, multiple rotors in testing
conducted by inventor and researcher Douglas Selsam, for the California Energy
Commission in 2004. The first commercially available co-axial multi-rotor turbine is the
patented dual-rotor American Twin Superturbine from Selsam Innovations in California,

with 2 propellers separated by 12 feet. It is the most powerful 7-foot-diameter (2.1 m)

turbine available, due to this extra rotor.

Counter-rotating horizontal-axis turbines

When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will
cause a proportional but opposite force on that system. A single rotor wind turbine causes
a significant amount of tangential or rotational air flow to be created by the spinning
blades. The energy of this tangential air flow is wasted in a single-rotor propeller design.
To use this wasted effort, the placement of a second rotor behind the first takes advantage
of the disturbed airflow. Contra-rotation wind energy collection with two rotors, one
behind the other, can gain up to 40% more energy from a given swept area as compared
with a single rotor. Much work has been done recently on this in the USA. A patent
application dated 1992 exists based on work done with the Trimblemill. Ability to be
point suspended, thus reducing support structure overturning moments theoretical ability
to be grid linked without electronics, thus giving the possibility of "arrays".

Vestas V29 wind turbine at Beaufort Court, Kings Langley, UK

Counter-rotating turbines can be used to increase the rotation speed of the electrical
generator. As of 2005, no large practical counter-rotating HAWTs are commercially sold.
When the counter-rotating turbines are on the same side of the tower, the blades in front
are angled forwards slightly so as to avoid hitting the rear ones. If the turbine blades are
on opposite sides of the tower, it is best that the blades at the back be smaller than the
blades at the front and set to stall at a higher wind speed. This allows the generator to
function at a wider wind speed range than a single-turbine generator for a given tower. To
reduce sympathetic vibrations, the two turbines should turn at speeds with few common
multiples, for example 7:3 speed ratio. Overall, this is a more complicated design than the
single-turbine wind generator, but it taps more of the wind's energy at a wider range of
wind speeds.

Appa designed and demonstrated a contra-rotor wind turbine in FY 20002002 funded by

California Energy Commission. This study showed 30 to 40% more power extraction
than a comparable single-rotor system. Further, it was observed that the slower the rotor
speed, the better the performance. Consequently, Megawatt machines benefit most. This
also cancels the gyroscopic forces. There will be an improvement in overall efficiency.

Furling tail and twisting blades turbines

In addition to variable pitch blades, furling tails and twisting blades are other
improvements on wind turbines. Similar to the variable pitch blades, they may also
greatly increase the efficiency of the turbine and be used in "do-it-yourself" construction

Vestas V47 wind turbine at American Wind Power Center in Lubbock, Texas

Telescopic blades
The next step in making improvements to wind turbines is the use of telescopic blades.
Telescopic blades can change the blade's length, thus increasing or decreasing the
turbine's swept area. Telescopic blades make a turbine more productive by increasing the
turbine's rotor diameter during low-wind conditions. In high-wind conditions, when the
turbine is in need of reducing loads, the blades can be retracted to make the rotor smaller.

Modified VAWT
Aerogenerator
The Aerogenerator is a special design of vertical axis wind turbine which could allow
greater energy outputs.

Savonius wind turbine

The Savonius wind turbine is another special design wind turbine.

Augmented "G" model VAWT: "G" Model Wind Turbine (GMWT)

The "G" Model VAWT Turbine is equipped with three self-positioning "Augmentation
And Directioning Wings=AADW" placed as the outer sections of classical Darrieus
blades. The GMWT can increase almost fivefold the efficiency of classical Darrieus
Blades: AADWs adjust themselves to the wind direction without any external power. The
resulting combination ("G" Model Wind Turbine) works with very low cut-in wind
speed, has self starting ability, together with a high capacity factor.

Enercon E-70 at GreenPark Business Park, UK

"Fuller" wind turbine

The "Fuller" wind turbine is a fully enclosed wind turbine which uses boundary layers
instead of blades.
Imagine a stack of CDs on a central shaft with a small air gap in between, the surface
tension of moving air as it passes through the small gaps creates friction and using this
energy causes the CDs to rotate around the shaft. The Fuller has addition vanes to help
direct the air for improved performance, hence it isn't totally bladeless, as has been
suggested.

Aerial

Concept for an airborne wind generator.

It has been suggested that wind turbines could be flown in high-speed winds using high
altitude wind power tactics, taking advantage of the steadier winds at high altitudes. A
system of automatically controlled tethered kites could also be used to capture energy
from high-altitude winds.

H-rotor
Another type is the H-rotor

Wind belt
Invented by Shawn Frayne. A belt vibrates by the passing flow of air. A magnet is
mounted at one end of the belt.

Vaneless ion wind generator

Piezoelectric wind turbines
Another special type of wind turbines are the piezoelectric wind turbines. Turbines with
diameters on the scale of 10 centimeters work by flexing piezoelectric crystals as they
rotate, sufficient to power small electronic devices.

Traffic-driven wind generator

A few proposals call for generating power from the otherwise wasted energy in the draft
created by traffic.

Blade Tip Power System (BTPS)

Designed by Imad Mahawili with Honeywell/WindTronics. This design uses many nylon
blades and turns a permanent magnet generator inside out. The magnets are on the tips of
the blades, and the stator is on the outside of the generator.

Wind turbine technology used to harness other power

sources
Wind turbines may also be used in conjunction with a solar collector to extract the energy
due to air heated by the Sun and rising through a large vertical Solar updraft tower. Wind
turbines are part of experimental wave powered generators where air displaced by waves
drives turbines.

Wind turbines with two blades

Nearly all modern wind turbines uses rotors with three blades. However, there are and
were also designs with another blade count. The most common other blade count is 2.
This was used at GROWIAN, some other prototypes and several wind turbine types
manufactured by NedWind. A wind park only using wind turbines with 2 blades is
Eemmeerdijk Wind Park. Wind turbines with 2 blades are manufactured by Nordic Wind
Power (Model N 1000) and by GC China.

Wind turbines on public display

The Nordex N50 wind turbine and visitor centre of Lamma Winds in Hong Kong.

Kiosk at the base of the Lamma Winds Nordex N50/800kW wind turbine on Lamma
Island with displays showing current power output and cumulative energy produced.

The NEG Micon M700 wind turbine at the Great River Energy headquarters in Maple
Grove, Minnesota
The great majority of wind turbines around the world belong to individuals or
corporations who use them to generate electric power or to perform mechanical work. As
such, wind turbines are primarily designed to be working devices. However, the large
size and height above surroundings of modern industrial wind turbines, combined with
their moving rotors, often makes them among the most conspicuous objects in their areas.
A few localities have exploited the attention-getting nature of wind turbines by placing
them on public display, either with visitor centers around their bases, or with viewing
areas farther away. The wind turbines themselves are generally of conventional
horizontal-axis, three-bladed design, and generate power to feed electrical grids, but they
also serve the unconventional roles of technology demonstration, public relations, and
education.

Australia
o Blayney Wind Farm, New South Wales has a viewing area and
interpretive centre
o Wattle Point Wind Farm, South Australia has an information centre
Canada
o OPG 7 commemorative turbine is a Vestas V80-1.8MW wind turbine on
the site of the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station

Toronto Hydro - WindShare features a Lagerwey Wind model LW 52

wind turbine at Exhibition Place

China
Inner Mongolia's Huitengxile Wind Farm has 14 visitor centers to
accommodate wind power tourists to the remote region
o Lamma Winds in Hong Kong has a single Nordex N50/800 kW model
with a rotor diameter of 50m and a nameplate capacity of 800 kW
New Zealand
o Brooklyn, Wellington, New Zealand has a 230 kW wind turbine
United Kingdom
o GreenPark Business Park has an Enercon E-70 2 MW wind turbine
adjacent to the M4 motorway, billed as the UK's most visible turbine
o Renewable Energy Systems has a Vestas V29 225 kW wind turbine
visible from the M25 motorway at its headquarters at Beaufort Court,
Kings Langley, Hertfordshire
o Scroby Sands wind farm has a visitor center at Great Yarmouth open
during the tourist season (May-October)
o Scout Moor Wind Farm "has become a real tourist attraction" since its
2008 opening
United States
o Dorchester, Massachusetts - Local 103 of the International Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers installed the first commercial-scale wind turbine within
the City of Boston, a 100 kW unit from Fuhrlaender on a 35-meter tower
with rotor diameter of 21 meters, visible from the John F. Kennedy
Library
o The Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland, Ohio has a reconditioned
Vestas V27 wind turbine with a nameplate capacity of 225 kW
o Great River Energy's headquarters in Maple Grove, Minnesota has a NEG
Micon M700 wind turbine, visible from Interstate 94
o Laurel, New York has a Northern Power Systems 100kW turbine at the
Half Hollow Nursery and private tours of the operating turbine are
provided by Eastern Energy Systems Inc. of Mattituck, New York.
o Lubbock, Texas has a Vestas V47 at the American Wind Power Center
o McKinney, Texas has a Wal-Mart store with several sustainability
features, including two wind turbines manufactured by Bergey
Windpower, of 1 kW and 50 kW nameplate capacity respectively
o Sweetwater, Texas has a 2 MW 60Hz DeWind D8.2 prototype wind
turbine for training students in the Texas State Technical College wind
energy program
o

Observation deck
Some wind turbines on public display go one further, with observation decks beneath
their nacelles.

Canada

Grouse Mountain Resorts in North Vancouver, British Columbia installed

a Leitwind 1.5MW wind turbine with an observation deck, atop a 65m
tower, at an elevation of 1,300m, opening just before the 2010 Winter
Olympics.
Germany
o One wind turbine of the type Enercon E-66 at Windpark Holtriem,
Germany carries an observation deck, open for visitors.
Netherlands
o The Siemens plant in Zoetermeer features a wind turbine with 40m blade
length and an observation deck.
United Kingdom
o Another Enercon E-66 wind turbine with an observation deck belonging to
Ecotricity is in the English town of Swaffham.
o

Enercon E-66 at Swaffham's Ecotech centre, showing observation deck below nacelle

Closeup of the Enercon E-66 at Swaffham

Wind turbine with observation deck at Siemens plant in Zoetermeer

Rooftop wind-turbines
Wind-turbines can be installed on the top of a roof of a building. This is not as common
as may first be assumed. Some examples include Marthalen Landi-Silo in Switzerland
and Council House 2 in Melbourne, Australia. Discovery Tower is an office building in
Houston, Texas, scheduled for opening in 2010, that incorporates 10 wind turbines in its
architecture.

Regents Quarter in Kings Cross, London

Wind turbine on tower block in Islington

Quietrevolution wind turbine on a building in Bristol

The Museum of Science in Boston, Massachusetts began constructing a rooftop Wind
Turbine Lab in 2009. The Lab will test nine wind turbines from five different
manufacturers on the roof of the Museum. Rooftop wind turbines may suffer from
turbulence, especially in cities, which reduces power output and accelerates turbine wear.
The lab seeks to address the general lack of performance data for urban wind turbines.
Due to the structural limitations of buildings, the limited space in urban areas, and safety
considerations, wind turbines mounted on buildings are usually small (with nameplate

capacities in the low kilowatts), rather than the megawatt-class wind turbines which are
most economical for wind farms. A partial exception is the Bahrain World Trade Centre
with three 225 kW wind turbines mounted between twin skyscrapers.

Chapter- 8

Small Wind Turbine

Small-scale wind power in rural Indiana.

Small wind turbines are wind turbines which have lower energy output than large
commercial wind turbines, such as those found in wind farms. These turbines may be as
small as a fifty watt generator for boat, caravan, or miniature refrigeration unit. Small
units often have direct drive generators, direct current output, aeroelastic blades, lifetime
bearings and use a vane to point into the wind. Larger, more costly turbines generally

have geared power trains, alternating current output, flaps and are actively pointed into
the wind. Direct drive generators and aeroelastic blades for large wind turbines are being
researched.

Market
United States
Small wind turbines added a total of 17.3 MW of generating capacity throughout the
United States in 2008, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).
That growth equaled a 78% increase in the domestic market for small wind turbines,
which are defined as wind turbines with capacities of 100 kW or less. AWEA's "2009
Small Wind Global Market Study", published in late 2009 May, credited the increase in
part to greater manufacturing volumes, as the industry was able to attract enough private
investment to finance manufacturing plant expansions. It also credited rising electricity
prices and greater public awareness of wind technologies for an increase in residential
sale. But a poll of small wind manufacturers found that the growth in 2008 might be only
a glimmer of things to come, as the companies projected a 30-fold growth in the U.S.
small wind market within as little as five years, despite the global recession. The U.S.
small wind industry also benefits from the global market, as it controls about half of the
global market share. U.S. manufacturers garnered $77 million of the $156 million that
was spent throughout the world on small wind turbine installations. A total of 38.7 MW
of small wind power capacity was installed globally in 2008.

Installation
Turbines should be mounted on a suitable tower to raise them above any nearby
obstacles. A good rule of thumb is that turbines should be at least 30 feet (9 m) higher
than anything within 500 feet (152 m). In general, an effort should be made to make sure
that a small wind turbine is as far away as possible from large upwind obstacles.
Measurements made in a boundary layer wind tunnel have indicated that significant
detrimental effects associated with nearby obstacles can extend up to 80 times the
obstacle's height downwind. However, this is an extreme case. Another approach to siting
a small turbine is to use a shelter model to predict how nearby obstacles will affect local
wind conditions. Models of this type are general and can be applied to any site. They are
often developed based on actual wind measurements, and can estimate flow properties
such as mean wind speed and turbulence levels at a potential turbine location, taking into
account the size, shape, and distance to any nearby obstacles.
A small wind turbine can be installed on a roof. Installation issues then include the
strength of the roof, vibration, and the turbulence caused by the roof ledge. Small-scale
rooftop turbines suffer from turbulence and rarely generate significant amounts of power,
especially in towns and cities.

Types

Smaller scale turbines for residential scale use are available, they are usually
approximately 7 to 25 feet (2.17.6 m) in diameter and produce electricity at a rate of 300
to 10,000 watts at their tested wind speed. Some units have been designed to be very
lightweight in their construction, e.g. 16 kilograms (35 lb), allowing sensitivity to minor
wind movements and a rapid response to wind gusts typically found in urban settings and
easy mounting much like a television antenna. It is claimed, and a few are certified, as
being inaudible even a few feet (about a metre) under the turbine.
The majority of small wind turbines are traditional horizontal axis wind turbines, but
Vertical axis wind turbines are a growing type of wind turbine in the small-wind market.
These turbines, by being able to take wind from multiple dimensions, are more applicable
for use at low heights, on rooftops, and in generally urbanized areas. Their ability to
function well at low heights is particularly important when considering the cost of a high
tower necessary for traditional turbines. All big companies in this industry, such as
WePower, Urban Green Energy, Mariah Power, and Helix Wind, have reported sharply
increasing sales over the previous years.
Dynamic braking regulates the speed by dumping excess energy, so that the turbine
continues to produce electricity even in high winds. The dynamic braking resistor may be
installed inside the building to provide heat (during high winds when more heat is lost by
the building, while more heat is also produced by the braking resistor). The location
makes low voltage (around 12 volt) distribution practical.

Local use
In the United States, residential wind turbines with outputs of 210 kW, typically cost
between $12,000 and $55,000 installed ($6 per watt), although there are incentives and
rebates available in 19 states that can reduce the purchase price for homeowners by up to
50 percent, to ($3 per watt). The US manufacturer "Southwest Windpower," estimates a
turbine to pay for itself in energy savings in 5 to 10 years.
The American Wind Energy Association has released several studies on the small wind
turbine market in the U.S. and abroad, showing that the U.S. continues to dominate the
Small Wind industry. According to another organization, the World Wind Energy
Association, it is difficult to assess the total number or capacity of small-scaled wind
turbines, but in China alone, there are roughly 300,000 small-scale wind turbines
generating electricity.
The dominant models on the market, especially in the United States, are horizontal-axis
wind turbines (HAWT).

Parts

Blades
Hub

DC generator
Diode
Mount
Wires
Tail

Tower

Base
Pole
Guy-wires

Loopwing
The Loopwing turbine is a low-noise, low-vibration and self-stabilizing device. It is
specifically designed for quiet home use. It requires only a 1.6 mph (2.6 km/h) breeze to
get started.

DIY and Open Source Wind Turbines

Some hobbyists have built wind turbines from kits, sourced components, or from scratch.
Do it yourself or DIY-wind turbine construction has been made popular by magazines
such as OtherPower and Home Power, and websites such as Instructables, and by TVseries as Jericho and The Time Machine.
DIY-made wind turbines are usually smaller (rooftop) turbines of ~ 1 kW or less. These
small wind turbines are usually tilt-up or fixed/guyed towers. However, larger
(freestanding) and more powerful windtubines are sometimes built as well. The latter can
generate power of up to 10 kW. In addition, people are also showing interest in DIYconstruction of wind turbines with special designs as the Savonius, Panemone, wind
turbine to boost power generation. When compared to similar sized commercial wind
turbines, these DIY turbines tend to be cheaper.
Through the internet, the community is now able to obtain plans to construct DIY-wind
turbines. and there is a growing trend toward building them for domestic requirements.
The DIY-wind turbines are now being used both in developed countries and in
developing countries, to help power homes, residences and small businesses. At present,
organizations as Practical Action have designed DIY wind turbines that can be easily
built by communities in developing nations and are supplying concrete documents on
how to do so.

Open source

To assist people in the developing countries, and hobbyists alike, several projects have
been open-sourced (e.g. the Jua Kali wind turbine, Hugh Piggot's wind turbine,
ForceField Wind Turbine, Chispito Wind Generator. )

Chapter- 9

Vertical Axis, Savonius & Airborne Wind Turbine

Vertical axis wind turbine

The world's tallest vertical-axis wind turbine, in Cap-Chat, Quebec

Vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWTs) are a type of wind turbine where the main rotor
shaft is set vertically. Among the advantages of this arrangement are that generators and
gearboxes can be placed close to the ground, and that VAWTs do not need to be pointed
into the wind. Major drawbacks for the early designs (Savonius, Darrieus, giromill and
cycloturbine) included the pulsatory torque that can be produced during each revolution
and the huge bending moments on the blades. Later designs solved the torque issue by
using the helical twist of the blades almost similar to Gorlov's water turbines.
A VAWT tipped sideways, with the axis perpendicular to the wind streamlines, functions
similarly. A more general term that includes this option is "transverse axis wind turbine".
For example, the original Darrieus patent , includes both options.
Drag-type VAWTs, such as the Savonius rotor, typically operate at lower tipspeed ratios
than lift-based VAWTs such as Darrieus rotors and cycloturbines.

General aerodynamics
The forces and the velocities acting in a Darrieus turbine are depicted in figure 1. The
resultant velocity vector, , is the vectorial sum of the undisturbed upstream air
velocity, , and the velocity vector of the advancing blade,
.

Fig1: Forces and velocities acting in a Darrieus turbine for various azimuthal positions

Five-kilowatt vertical axis wind turbine

Thus, the oncoming fluid velocity varies, the maximum is found for
and the
minimum is found for
, where is the azimuthal or orbital blade position. The
angle of attack, , is the angle between the oncoming air speed, W, and the blade's chord.
The resultant airflow creates a varying, positive angle of attack to the blade in the
upstream zone of the machine, switching sign in the downstream zone of the machine.
From geometrical considerations, the resultant airspeed flow and the angle of attack are
calculated as follows:

where

is the tip speed ratio parameter.

The resultant aerodynamic force is decomposed either in lift (F_L) - drag (D)
components or normal (N) - tangential (T) components. The forces are considered acting
at 1/4 chord from the leading edge (by convention), the pitching moment is determined to
resolve the aerodynamic forces. The aeronautical terms lift and drag are, strictly
speaking, forces across and along the approaching net relative airflow respectively. The
tangential force is acting along the blade's velocity and, thus, pulling the blade around,
and the normal force is acting radially, and, thus, is acting against the bearings. The lift
and the drag force are useful when dealing with the aerodynamic behaviour around each
blade, i.e. dynamic stall, boundary layer, etc; while when dealing with global
performance, fatigue loads, etc., it is more convenient to have a normal-tangential frame.
The lift and the drag coefficients are usually normalised by the dynamic pressure of the
relative airflow, while the normal and the tangential coefficients are usually normalised
by the dynamic pressure of undisturbed upstream fluid velocity.

A = Surface Area
The amount of power, P, that can be absorbed by a wind turbine.

Where Cp is the power coefficient, is the density of the air, A is the swept area of the
turbine, and is the wind speed.

Advantages of vertical axis wind turbines

VAWTs offer a number of advantages over traditional horizontal axis wind turbines
(HAWTs). They can be packed closer together in wind farms, allowing more in a given
space. This is not because they are smaller, but rather due to the slowing effect on the air
that HAWTs have, forcing designers to separate them by ten times their width.
VAWTs are rugged, quiet, omni-directional, and they do not create as much stress on the
support structure. They do not require as much wind to generate power, thus allowing
them to be closer to the ground. By being closer to the ground they are easily maintained
and can be installed on chimneys and similar tall structures.

Savonius wind turbine

Savonius wind turbine

Savonius wind turbines are a type of vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT), used for
converting the force of the wind into torque on a rotating shaft. The turbine consists of a
number of aerofoils usually--but not always--vertically mounted on a rotating shaft or
framework, either ground stationed or tethered in airborne systems. They were invented
by the Finnish engineer Sigurd J. Savonius in 1922. Johann Ernst Elias Bessler (born
1680) was the first to attempt to build a horizontal windmill of the Savonius type in the

town of Furstenburg in Germany in 1745. He fell to his death whilst construction was
under way. It was never completed but the building still exists.

Operation

Schematic drawing of a two-scoop Savonius turbine

Savonius turbines are one of the simplest turbines. Aerodynamically, they are drag-type
devices, consisting of two or three scoops. Looking down on the rotor from above, a twoscoop machine would look like an "S" shape in cross section. Because of the curvature,
the scoops experience less drag when moving against the wind than when moving with
the wind. The differential drag causes the Savonius turbine to spin. Because they are
drag-type devices, Savonius turbines extract much less of the wind's power than other
similarly-sized lift-type turbines. Much of the swept area of a Savonius rotor may be near
the ground, if it has a small mount without an extended post, making the overall energy
extraction less effective due to the lower wind speeds found at lower heights.

Use

Combined Darrieus-Savonius generator in Taiwan

Savonius turbines are used whenever cost or reliability is much more important than
efficiency. For example, most anemometers are Savonius turbines, because efficiency is
completely irrelevant for that application. Much larger Savonius turbines have been used
to generate electric power on deep-water buoys, which need small amounts of power and
get very little maintenance. Design is simplified because, unlike with Horizontal Axis
Wind Turbines (HAWTs), no pointing mechanism is required to allow for shifting wind
direction and the turbine is self-starting. Savonius and other vertical-axis machines are
not usually connected to electric power grids. They can sometimes have long helical
scoops, to give smooth torque.

The most ubiquitous application of the Savonius wind turbine is the Flettner Ventilator
which is commonly seen on the roofs of vans and buses and is used as a cooling device.
The ventilator was developed by the German aircraft engineer Anton Flettner in the
1920s. It uses the Savonius wind turbine to drive an extractor fan. The vents are still
manufactured in the UK by Flettner Ventilator Limited.
Small Savonius wind turbines are sometimes seen used as advertising signs where the
rotation helps to draw attention to the item advertised. They sometimes feature a simple
two-frame animation.

Tethered airborne Savonius turbines

Airborne wind turbines

Kite types
When the Savonius rotor axis is set horizontal and tethered, then kiting results.
There are scores of patents and products that use the net lift Magnus-effect that
occurs in the autorotation of the Savonius rotor. The spin may be mined for some
of its energy for making noise, heat, or electricity.

Gallery

Operation of a Savonius turbine

A Savonius rotor bladed WECS

Airborne wind turbine

Airborne wind generator of Savonius style

An airborne wind turbine is a design concept for a wind turbine that is supported in the
air without a tower. Airborne wind turbines may operate in low or high altitudes; they are
part of a wider class of airborne wind energy systems (AWE) addressed by high altitude
wind power. When the generator is on the ground,[] then the tethered aircraft need not
carry the generator mass or have a conductive tether. When the generator is aloft, then a
conductive tether would be used to transmit energy to the ground or used aloft or beamed
to receivers using microwave or laser. Airborne turbine systems would have the
advantage of tapping an almost constant wind, without requirements for slip rings or yaw
mechanism, and without the expense of tower construction. Kites and 'helicopters' come
down when there is insufficient wind; kytoons and blimps resolve the matter. Also, bad
weather such as lightning or thunderstorms, could temporarily suspend use of the
machines, probably requiring them to be brought back down to the ground and covered.

Some schemes require a long power cable and, if the turbine is high enough, an aircraft
exclusion zone. As of 2008, no commercial airborne wind turbines are in regular
operation.

Aerodynamic variety
An aerodynamic airborne wind power system relies on the wind for support.
Bryan Roberts, a professor of engineering at the University of Technology, in Sydney,
Australia, has proposed a helicopter-like craft which flies to 15,000 feet (4,600 m)
altitude and stays there, held aloft by wings that generate lift from the wind, and held in
place by a cable to a ground anchor. According to its designers, while some of the energy
in the wind would be 'lost' on lift, the constant and potent winds would allow it to
generate constant electricity. Since the winds usually blow horizontally, the turbines
would be at an angle from the horizontal, catching winds while still generating lift.
Deployment could be done by feeding electricity to the turbines, which would turn them
into electric motors, lifting the structure into the sky.
The Dutch ex-astronaut and physicist Wubbo Ockels, working with the Delft University
of Technology in the Netherlands, has designed, and demonstrated , an airborne wind
turbine he calls a "Laddermill". It consists of an endless loop of kites. The kites lift one
end of the endless loop, (the "ladder") up, and the released energy is used to drive an
electric generator.
A Sept'09 paper from Carbon Tracking Ltd., Ireland has shown the capacity factor of a
kite using ground based generation to be in 52.2% which compare favorably with
terrestrial wind-farm capacity factors of 30%.
A team from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in the United States has developed a smaller
scale kite power system with an estimated output of about 1 kW. It uses a kiteboarding
kite to induce a rocking motion in a pivoting beam.
The Kitegen uses a prototype vertical-axis wind turbine. It is an innovative plan (still in
the construction phase) that consists of one wind farm with a vertical spin axis, and
employs kites to exploit high-altitude winds. The Kite Wind Generator (KWG) or
Kitegen is claimed to eliminate all the static and dynamic problems that prevent the
increase of the power (in terms of dimensions) obtainable from the traditional horizontalaxis wind turbine generators. Generating equipment would remain on the ground, only
the airfoils are supported by the wind. Such a wind power plant would be capable of
producing the energy equivalent to a nuclear power plant, while using an area of few
square kilometres, without occupying it exclusively. (The majority of this area can still be
used for agriculture, or navigation in the case of an offshore installation.)
KiteLab's Dave Santos of Ilwaco, Washington, has been advancing single-surface
wingmills to generate useful electricity with the generator ground-based.

The Rotokite is developed from Gianni Vergnano's idea. It uses aerodynamic profiles
similar to kites that have been rotated on their own axis, emulating the performance of a
propeller. The use of the rotation principle simplifies the problem of checking the flight
of the kites and eliminates the difficulties due to the lengths of cables, enabling the
production of wind energy at low cost. The Heli Wind Power is a project of Gianni
Vergnano that uses a tethered kite.

Aerostat variety
An aerostat-type wind power system relies at least in part on buoyancy to support the
wind-collecting elements. Aerostats vary in their designs and resulting lift-over-drag
aerodynamic characteristic; the kiting effect of higher lift-over-drag shapes for the
aerostat can effectively keep an airborne turbine aloft.
Balloons can be added to the mix to keep systems up without wind, but balloons leak
slowly and have to be resupplied with lifting gas, possibly patched as well. Very large,
sun heated balloons may solve the helium or hydrogen leakage problems.
An Ontario based company called Magenn Power Inc. has developed a turbine called the
Magenn Air Rotor System (MARS). The 100-foot (30 m)-wide MARS system uses a
horizontal rotor in a helium suspended apparatus which is tethered to a transformer on the
ground. Magenn states that their technology provides high torque, low starting speeds,
and superior overall efficiency thanks to its ability to deploy higher in comparison to nonaerial solutions. The first prototypes were built by TCOM in April 2008.

Concept drawing of the Twind technology.

The Twind Technology concept uses a pair of captive balloons at an altitude of 800
meters. The tether cables transmit force to a rotating platform on the ground. Each
balloon has a sail connected to it. The two balloons move alternately, the balloon with the
sail open moves downwind and draws the other balloon upwind, and then the motion
reverses. The tether cable can be used to turn the shaft of a generator to produce electrical
energy or perform other works (grinding, sawing, pumping).

Estimated costs
Sky Windpower estimate that their technology will be capable of producing electricity for
$0.02 per KWh, while a system of raising a kite to a high altitude while turning a
generator on the ground, and then changing its shape so that it can be drawn back down
with less energy than it produced on the way up, has been estimated to be capable of
producing electricity for $0.01 per KWh - both numbers being significantly lower than
the current price of non-subsidized electricity.

Chapter- 10

Wind Turbine Design

An example of a wind turbine, this 3 bladed turbine is the classic design of modern wind
turbines
Wind turbine designs are utilized to create wind turbines that exploit wind energy. A
wind turbine installation consists of the necessary systems needed to capture the wind's
energy, point the turbine into the wind, convert mechanical rotation into electrical power,
and other systems to start, stop, and control the turbine.
Here we, covers the design of horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWT) since the majority
of commercial turbines use this design. Contrary to popular belief, considerable attention
should be given to the structural and foundation design of HAWTs. This is mainly due to

the disproportionate amount that is spent on the foundations as a percentage of the total
project cost.

Design specification
The design specification for a wind-turbine will contain a power curve and guaranteed
availability. With the data from the wind resource assessment it is possible to calculate
commercial viability. The typical operating temperature range is -20 to 40 C (-4 to
104 F). In areas with extreme climate (like Inner Mongolia or Rajasthan) specific cold
and hot weather versions are required.

Low temperature
Utility-scale wind turbine generators have minimum temperature operating limits which
apply in areas that experience temperatures below 20 C. Wind turbines must be
protected from ice accumulation, which can make anemometer readings inaccurate and
which can cause high structure loads and damage. Some turbine manufacturers offer lowtemperature packages at a few percent extra cost, which include internal heaters, different
lubricants, and different alloys for structural elements. If the low-temperature interval is
combined with a low-wind condition, the wind turbine will require an external supply of
power, equivalent to a few percent of its rated power, for internal heating. For example,
the St. Leon, Manitoba project has a total rating of 99 MW and is estimated to need up to
3 MW (around 3% of capacity) of station service power a few days a year for
temperatures down to 30 C. This factor affects the economics of wind turbine operation
in cold climates.

Aerodynamics
The aerodynamics of a horizontal-axis wind turbine are not straightforward. The air flow
at the blades is not the same as the airflow far away from the turbine. The very nature of
the way in which energy is extracted from the air also causes air to be deflected by the
turbine. In addition the aerodynamics of a wind turbine at the rotor surface exhibit
phenomena that are rarely seen in other aerodynamic fields.
In 1919 the physicist Albert Betz showed that for a hypothetical ideal wind-energy
extraction machine, the fundamental laws of conservation of mass and energy allowed no
more than 16/27 (59.3%) of the kinetic energy of the wind to be captured. This Betz' law
limit can be approached by modern turbine designs which may reach 70 to 80% of this
theoretical limit.

Power control
A wind turbine is designed to produce a maximum of power at wide spectrum of wind
speeds. All wind turbines are designed for a maximum wind speed, called the survival
speed, above which they do not survive. The survival speed of commercial wind turbines

is in the range of 40 m/s (144 km/h) to 72 m/s (259 km/h). The most common survival
speed is 60 m/s (216 km/h). The wind turbines have three modes of operation:

Below rated wind speed operation

Around rated wind speed operation (usually at nameplate capacity)
Above rated wind speed operation

If the rated wind speed is exceeded the power has to be limited. There are various ways to
achieve this.

Stall

Plastic vortex generator stripes used to control stall characteristics of the blade - in this
example protecting the blade from rapid fluctuations in wind speed.

Closeup look at the vortex generators (VGs) - the larger ones are closest to the root of the
blade where the boundary layer is thicker(i.e., closest to the hub)
Stalling works by increasing the angle at which the relative wind strikes the blades (angle
of attack), and it reduces the induced drag (drag associated with lift). Stalling is simple
because it can be made to happen passively (it increases automatically when the winds
speed up), but it increases the cross-section of the blade face-on to the wind, and thus the
ordinary drag. A fully stalled turbine blade, when stopped, has the flat side of the blade
facing directly into the wind.
A fixed-speed HAWT inherently increases its angle of attack at higher wind speed as the
blades speed up. A natural strategy, then, is to allow the blade to stall when the wind
speed increases. This technique was successfully used on many early HAWTs. However,
on some of these blade sets, it was observed that the degree of blade pitch tended to
increase audible noise levels.
Vortex generators may be used to control the lift characteristics of the blade. The VGs are
placed on the airfoil to enhance the lift if they are placed on the lower (flatter) surface or
limit the maximum lift if placed on the upper (higher camber) surface.

Pitch control
Furling works by decreasing the angle of attack, which reduces the induced drag from the
lift of the rotor, as well as the cross-section. One major problem in designing wind

turbines is getting the blades to stall or furl quickly enough should a gust of wind cause
sudden acceleration. A fully furled turbine blade, when stopped, has the edge of the blade
facing into the wind.
Standard modern turbines all pitch the blades in high winds. Since pitching requires
acting against the torque on the blade, it requires some form of pitch angle control. Many
turbines use hydraulic systems. These systems are usually spring loaded, so that if
hydraulic power fails, the blades automatically furl. Other turbines use an electric
servomotor for every rotor blade. They have a small battery-reserve in case of an electricgrid breakdown. Small wind turbines (under 50 kW) with variable-pitching generally use
systems operated by centrifugal force, either by flyweights or geometric design, and
employ no electric or hydraulic controls.

Other controls
Yawing
Modern large wind turbines are typically actively controlled to face the wind direction
measured by a wind vane situated on the back of the nacelle. By minimizing the yaw
angle (the misalignment between wind and turbine pointing direction), the power output
is maximized and non-symmetrical loads minimized. However, since the wind direction
varies quickly the turbine will not strictly follow the direction and will have a small yaw
angle on average. The power output losses can simply be approximated to fall with
cos3(yaw angle).

Electrical braking

Dynamic braking resistor for wind turbine.

Braking of a small wind turbine can also be done by dumping energy from the generator
into a resistor bank, converting the kinetic energy of the turbine rotation into heat. This
method is useful if the kinetic load on the generator is suddenly reduced or is too small to
keep the turbine speed within its allowed limit.
Cyclically braking causes the blades to slow down, which increases the stalling effect,
reducing the efficiency of the blades. This way, the turbine's rotation can be kept at a safe
speed in faster winds while maintaining (nominal) power output. This method is usually
not applied on large grid-connected wind turbines.

Mechanical braking

A mechanical drum brake or disk brake is used to hold the turbine at rest for
maintenance. Such brakes are usually applied only after blade furling and
electromagnetic braking have reduced the turbine speed, as the mechanical brakes would
wear quickly if used to stop the turbine from full speed. There can also be a stick brake.

Turbine size

A person standing beside medium size modern turbine blades.

For a given survivable wind speed, the mass of a turbine is approximately proportional to
the cube of its blade-length. Wind power intercepted by the turbine is proportional to the
square of its blade-length. The maximum blade-length of a turbine is limited by both the
strength and stiffness of its material.
Labor and maintenance costs increase only gradually with increasing turbine size, so to
minimize costs, wind farm turbines are basically limited by the strength of materials, and
siting requirements.
Typical modern wind turbines have diameters of 40 to 90 metres (130 to 300 ft) and are
rated between 500 kW and 2 MW. As of 2010 the most powerful turbine is rated at 7
MW.

Generator

10 Israeli wind turbines in the Golan Heights 600 kW each

For large, commercial size horizontal-axis wind turbines, the generator is mounted in a
nacelle at the top of a tower, behind the hub of the turbine rotor. Typically wind turbines
generate electricity through asynchronous machines that are directly connected with the
electricity grid. Usually the rotational speed of the wind turbine is slower than the
equivalent rotation speed of the electrical network - typical rotation speeds for a wind
generators are 5-20 rpm while a directly connected machine will have an electrical speed
between 750-3600 rpm. Therefore, a gearbox is inserted between the rotor hub and the
generator. This also reduces the generator cost and weight.
Commercial size generators have a rotor carrying a field winding so that a rotating
magnetic field is produced inside a set of windings called the stator. While the rotating
field winding consumes a fraction of a percent of the generator output, adjustment of the
field current allows good control over the generator output voltage. Enercon has
produced gearless wind turbines with permanent magnet generators for many years, and
Siemens produces a gearless "inverted generator" 3MW model while developing a 6MW
model. This gives better reliability and performance than gear based systems. Gearless
turbines

Parts of DIY Wind turbine

Older style wind generators rotate at a constant speed, to match power line frequency,
which allowed the use of less costly induction generators. Newer wind turbines often turn
at whatever speed generates electricity most efficiently. This can be solved using multiple
technologies such as doubly fed induction generators or full-effect converters where the
variable frequency current produced is converted to DC and then back to AC, matching
the line frequency and voltage. Although such alternatives require costly equipment and
cause power loss, the turbine can capture a significantly larger fraction of the wind
energy. In some cases, especially when turbines are sited offshore, the DC energy will be
transmitted from the turbine to a central (onshore) inverter for connection to the grid.

Blades
Blade design

Blades can be made from simple objects as barrels

The ratio between the speed of the blade tips and the speed of the wind is called tip speed
ratio. High efficiency 3-blade-turbines have tip speed/wind speed ratios of 6 to 7.
Modern wind turbines are designed to spin at varying speeds. Use of aluminum and
composite materials in their blades has contributed to low rotational inertia, which means
that newer wind turbines can accelerate quickly if the winds pick up, keeping the tip

speed ratio more nearly constant. Operating closer to their optimal tip speed ratio during
energetic gusts of wind allows wind turbines to improve energy capture from sudden
gusts that are typical in urban settings.
In contrast, older style wind turbines were designed with heavier steel blades, which have
higher inertia, and rotated at speeds governed by the AC frequency of the power lines.
The high inertia buffered the changes in rotation speed and thus made power output more
stable.
The speed and torque at which a wind turbine rotates must be controlled for several
reasons:

To optimize the aerodynamic efficiency of the rotor in light winds.

To keep the generator within its speed and torque limits.
To keep the rotor and hub within their centripetal force limits. The centripetal
force from the spinning rotors increases as the square of the rotation speed, which
makes this structure sensitive to overspeed.
To keep the rotor and tower within their strength limits. Because the power of the
wind increases as the cube of the wind speed, turbines have to be built to survive
much higher wind loads (such as gusts of wind) than those from which they can
practically generate power. Since the blades generate more downwind force (and
thus put far greater stress on the tower) when they are producing torque, most
wind turbines have ways of reducing torque in high winds.
To enable maintenance; because it is dangerous to have people working on a wind
turbine while it is active, it is sometimes necessary to bring a turbine to a full stop.
To reduce noise; As a rule of thumb, the noise from a wind turbine increases with
the fifth power of the relative wind speed (as seen from the moving tip of the
blades). In noise-sensitive environments, the tip speed can be limited to
approximately 60 m/s (200 ft/s).

More and more engineers realized that the scale of the today's wind turbine blades is now
rendering the early trial-and-error intuition-based approaches outdated. Predictive
computer tools which are fundamentally founded on mechanics principles are needed to
analyze the blade structure in the early design process. Recently, VABS originally
developed in helicopter industry, is introduced as a rigorous, engineering-friendly
approach for modeling realistic, composite rotor blades. VABS can easily save orders of
magnitude computational cost without sacrificing the accuracy. An critical assessment of
computer tools for calculating composite wind turbine blade properties has shown that
VABS is the best tool available for modeling composite wind turbine blades among all
the other tools available in the wind industry.
Using composites adds a significant level of complexity into the engineering of modern
wind turbines. One has to simultaneously consider the heterogeneity and anisotropy of
the material in the design and analysis. Such characteristics of composites will introduce
new deformation modes such as extension-twist or twist-bending couplings defying the

conventional blade analysis. VABS is the only computational tool which can rigorously
capture all the deformation modes including elastic couplings due to use of composites.

Blade count

The NASA Mod-0 research wind turbine at Glenn Research Center's Plum Brook station
in Ohio tested a one-bladed rotor configuration
The determination of the number of blades involves design considerations of
aerodynamic efficiency, component costs, system reliability, and aesthetics. Noise
emissions are affected by the location of the blades upwind or downwind of the tower
and the speed of the rotor. Given that the noise emissions from the blades' trailing edges
and tips vary by the 5th power of blade speed, a small increase in tip speed can make a
large difference.
Wind turbines developed over the last 50 years have almost universally used either two or
three blades. Aerodynamic efficiency increases with number of blades but with
diminishing return. Increasing the number of blades from one to two yields a six percent
increase in aerodynamic efficiency, whereas increasing the blade count from two to three
yields only an additional three percent in efficiency. Further increasing the blade count
yields minimal improvements in aerodynamic efficiency and sacrifices too much in blade
stiffness as the blades become thinner.

Component costs that are affected by blade count are primarily for materials and
manufacturing of the turbine rotor and drive train. Generally, the fewer the number of
blades, the lower the material and manufacturing costs will be. In addition, the fewer the
number of blades, the higher the rotational speed can be. This is because blade stiffness
requirements to avoid interference with the tower limit how thin the blades can be
manufactured, but only for upwind machines; deflection of blades in a downwind
machine results in increased tower clearance. Fewer blades with higher rotational speeds
reduce peak torques in the drive train, resulting in lower gearbox and generator costs.

The 98 meter diameter, two-bladed NASA/DOE Mod-5B wind turbine was the largest
operating wind turbine in the world in the early 1990s

System reliability is affected by blade count primarily through the dynamic loading of the
rotor into the drive train and tower systems. While aligning the wind turbine to changes
in wind direction (yawing), each blade experiences a cyclic load at its root end depending
on blade position. This is true of one, two, three blades or more. However, these cyclic
loads when combined together at the drive train shaft are symmetrically balanced for
three blades, yielding smoother operation during turbine yaw. Turbines with one or two
blades can use a pivoting teetered hub to also nearly eliminate the cyclic loads into the
drive shaft and system during yawing.
Finally, aesthetics can be considered a factor in that some people find that the threebladed rotor is more pleasing to look at than a one- or two-bladed rotor.

Blade materials
New generation wind turbine designs are pushing power generation from the single
megawatt range to upwards of 10 megawatts. The common trend of these larger capacity
designs are larger and larger wind turbine blades. Covering a larger area effectively
increases the tip-speed ratio of a turbine at a given wind speed, thus increasing the energy
extraction capability of a turbine system.
Current production wind turbine blades are manufactured as large as 100 meters in
diameter with prototypes in the range of 110 to 120 meters. In 2001, an estimated 50
million kilograms of fiberglass laminate were used in wind turbine blades. New materials
and manufacturing methods provide the opportunity to improve wind turbine efficiency
by allowing for larger, stronger blades.
One of the most important goals when designing larger blade systems is to keep blade
weight under control. Since blade mass scales as the cube of the turbine radius, loading
due to gravity becomes a constraining design factor for systems with larger blades.
Current manufacturing methods for blades in the 40 to 50 meter range involve various
proven fiberglass composite fabrication techniques. Manufactures such as Nordex and
GE Wind use an infusion process for blade manufacture. Other manufacturers use
variations on this technique, some including carbon and wood with fiberglass in an epoxy
matrix. Options also include prepreg fiberglass and vacuum-assisted resin transfer
molding. Essentially each of these options are variations on the same theme: a glass-fiber
reinforced polymer composite constructed through various means with differing
complexity. Perhaps the largest issue with more simplistic, open-mold, wet systems are
the emissions associated with the volatile organics released into the atmosphere.
Preimpregnated materials and resin infusion techniques avoid the release of volatiles by
containing all reaction gases. However, these contained processes have their own
challenges, namely the production of thick laminates necessary for structural components
becomes more difficult. As the preform resin permeability dictates the maximum
laminate thickness, bleeding is required to eliminate voids and insure proper resin
distribution. A unique solution to resin distribution is the use of a partially
preimpregnated fiberglass. During evacuation, the dry fabric provides a path for airflow

and, once heat and pressure are applied, resin may flow into the dry region resulting in a
thoroughly impregnated laminate structure.
Epoxy-based composites are of greatest interest to wind turbine manufacturers because
they deliver a key combination of environmental, production, and cost advantages over
other resin systems. Epoxies also improve wind turbine blade composite manufacture by
allowing for shorter cure cycles, increased durability, and improved surface finish.
Prepreg operations further improve cost-effective operations by reducing processing
cycles, and therefore manufacturing time, over wet lay-up systems. As turbine blades are
approaching 60 meters and greater, infusion techniques are becoming more prevalent as
the traditional resin transfer moulding injection time is too long as compared to the resin
set-up time, thus limiting laminate thickness. Injection forces resin through a thicker ply
stack, thus depositing the resin where in the laminate structure before gelatin occurs.
Specialized epoxy resins have been developed to customize lifetimes and viscosity to
tune resin performance in injection applications.
Carbon fiber-reinforced load-bearing spars have recently been identified as a costeffective means for reducing weight and increasing stiffness. The use of carbon fibers in
60 meter turbine blades is estimated to result in a 38% reduction in total blade mass and a
14% decrease in cost as compared to a 100% fiberglass design. The use of carbon fibers
has the added benefit of reducing the thickness of fiberglass laminate sections, further
addressing the problems associated with resin wetting of thick lay-up sections. Wind
turbine applications of carbon fiber may also benefit from the general trend of increasing
use and decreasing cost of carbon fiber materials.
Smaller blades can be made from light metals such as aluminum. Wood and canvas sails
were originally used on early windmills due to their low price, availability, and ease of
manufacture. These materials, however, require frequent maintenance during their
lifetime. Also, wood and canvas have a relatively high drag (low aerodynamic efficiency)
as compared to the force they capture. For these reasons they have been mostly replaced
by solid airfoils.

Tower
Typically, 2 types of towers exist: floating towers and land-based towers.

Tower height
Wind velocities increase at higher altitudes due to surface aerodynamic drag (by land or
water surfaces) and the viscosity of the air. The variation in velocity with altitude, called
wind shear, is most dramatic near the surface.

Wind turbines generating electricity at the San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm.
Typically, in daytime the variation follows the wind profile power law, which predicts
that wind speed rises proportionally to the seventh root of altitude. Doubling the altitude
of a turbine, then, increases the expected wind speeds by 10% and the expected power by
34%. To avoid buckling, doubling the tower height generally requires doubling the
diameter of the tower as well, increasing the amount of material by a factor of at least
four.
At night time, or when the atmosphere becomes stable, wind speed close to the ground
usually subsides whereas at turbine hub altitude it does not decrease that much or may
even increase. As a result the wind speed is higher and a turbine will produce more power
than expected from the 1/7th power law: doubling the altitude may increase wind speed
by 20% to 60%. A stable atmosphere is caused by radiative cooling of the surface and is
common in a temperate climate: it usually occurs when there is a (partly) clear sky at
night. When the (high altitude) wind is strong (a 10-meter (33 ft) wind speed higher than
approximately 6 to 7 m/s (2023 ft/s)) the stable atmosphere is disrupted because of
friction turbulence and the atmosphere will turn neutral. A daytime atmosphere is either
neutral (no net radiation; usually with strong winds and/or heavy clouding) or unstable
(rising air because of ground heating by the sun). Here again the 1/7th power law
applies or is at least a good approximation of the wind profile. Indiana had been rated as
having a wind capacity of 30,000 MW, but by raising the expected turbine height from 50

m to 70 m, the wind capacity estimate was raised to 40,000 MW, and could be double
that at 100 m.
For HAWTs, tower heights approximately two to three times the blade length have been
found to balance material costs of the tower against better utilisation of the more
expensive active components.

Foundations
Wind turbines, by their nature, are very tall slender structures, this can cause a number of
issues when the structural design of the foundations are considered.
The foundations for a conventional engineering structure are designed mainly to transfer
the vertical load (dead weight) to the ground, this generally allows for a comparatively
unsophisticated arrangement to be used. However in the case of wind turbines, due to the
high wind and environmental loads experienced there is a significant horizontal load that
needs to be accounted for.
This loading regime causes large moment loads to be applied to the foundations of a wind
turbine. As a result, considerable attention needs to be given when designing the footings
to ensure that the turbines are sufficiently restrained to operate efficiently. In the current
Det Norske Veritas (DNV) guidelines for the design of wind turbines the angular
deflection of the foundations are limited to 0.5.
Scale model tests using a 50g centrifuge are being performed at the Technical University
of Denmark to test monopile foundations for offshore wind turbines at 30-50m water
depth.

Chapter- 11

Wind Turbine Aerodynamics

Wind turbine blades awaiting installation in laydown yard.

The wind turbine aerodynamics of a horizontal-axis wind turbine (HAWT) are not
straightforward. The air flow at the blades is not the same as the airflow further away
from the turbine. The very nature of the way in which energy is extracted from the air
also causes air to be deflected by the turbine. In addition the aerodynamics of a wind
turbine at the rotor surface exhibit phenomena that are rarely seen in other aerodynamic
fields.

Axial momentum and the Betz limit

Wind turbine power coefficient

Distribution of wind speed (red) and energy generated (blue). The histogram shows
measured data, while the curve is the Raleigh model distribution for the same average
wind speed.
Energy in fluid is contained in four different forms: gravitational potential energy,
thermodynamic pressure, kinetic energy from the velocity and finally thermal energy.

Gravitational and thermal energy have a negligible effect on the energy extraction
process. From a macroscopic point of view, the air flow about the wind turbine is at
atmospheric pressure. If pressure is constant then only kinetic energy is extracted.
However up close near the rotor itself the air velocity is constant as it passes through the
rotor plane. This is because of conservation of mass. The air that passes through the rotor
cannot slow down because it needs to stay out of the way of the air behind it. So at the
rotor the energy is extracted by a pressure drop. The air directly behind the wind turbine
is at sub-atmospheric pressure; the air in front is under greater than atmospheric pressure.
It is this high pressure in front of the wind turbine that deflects some of the upstream air
around the turbine.
Albert Betz and Frederick W. Lanchester were the first to study this phenomenon. Betz
notably determined the maximum limit to wind turbine performance. The limit is now
referred to as the Betz limit. This is derived by looking at the axial momentum of the air
passing through the wind turbine. As stated above some of the air is deflected away from
the turbine. This causes the air passing through the rotor plane to have a smaller velocity
than the free stream velocity. The ratio of this reduction to that of the air velocity far
away from the wind turbine is called the axial induction factor. It is defined as below:

where: a is the axial induction factor, U1 is the wind speed far away upstream
from the rotor, and U2 is the wind speed at the rotor.
The first step to deriving the Betz limit is applying conservation of axial momentum. As
stated above the wind loses speed after the wind turbine compared to the speed far away
from the turbine. This would violate the conservation of momentum if the wind turbine
was not applying a thrust force on the flow. This thrust force manifests itself through the
pressure drop across the rotor. The front operates at high pressure while the back operates
at low pressure. The pressure difference from the front to back causes the thrust force.
The momentum lost in the turbine is balanced by the thrust force.
Another equation is needed to relate the pressure difference to the velocity of the flow
near the turbine. Here the Bernoulli equation is used between the field flow and the flow
near the wind turbine. There is one limitation to the Bernoulli equation: the equation
cannot be applied to fluid passing through the wind turbine. Instead conservation of mass
is used to relate the incoming air to the outlet air. Betz used these equations and managed
to solve the velocities of the flow in the far wake and near the wind turbine in terms of
the far field flow and the axial induction factor. The velocities are given below as:
U2 = U1(1 a)
U4 = U1(1 2a)

U4 is introduced here as the wind velocity in the far wake. This is important because the
power extracted from the turbine is defined by the following equation. However the Betz
limit is given in terms of the coefficient of power. The coefficient of power is similar to
efficiency but not the same. The formula for the coefficient of power is given beneath the
formula for power:

Betz was able to develop an expression for Cp in terms of the induction factors. This is
done by the velocity relations being substituted into power and power is substituted into
the coefficient of power definition. The relationship Betz developed is given below:
Cp = 4a(1 a)2
The Betz limit is defined by the maximum value that can be given by the above formula.
This is found by taking the derivative with respect to the axial induction factor, setting it
to zero and solving for the axial induction factor. Betz was able to show that the optimum
axial induction factor is one third. The optimum axial induction factor was then used to
find the maximum coefficient of power. This maximum coefficient is the Betz limit. Betz
was able to show that the maximum coefficient of power of a wind turbine is 16/27.
Airflow operating at higher thrust will cause the axial induction factor to rise above the
optimum value. Higher thrust cause more air to be deflected away from the turbine.
When the axial induction factor falls below the optimum value the wind turbine is not
extracting all the energy it can. This reduces pressure around the turbine and allows more
air to pass through the turbine, but not enough to account for lack of energy being
extracted.
The derivation of the Betz limit shows a simple analysis of wind turbine aerodynamics.
In reality there is a lot more. A more rigorous analysis would include wake rotation, the
effect of variable geometry. The effect of air foils on the flow is a major component of
wind turbine aerodynamics. Within airfoils alone, the wind turbine aerodynamicist has to
consider the effect of surface roughness, dynamic stall tip losses, solidity, among other
problems.

Angular momentum and wake rotation

The wind turbine described by Betz does not actually exist. It is merely an idealized wind
turbine described as an actuator disk. It's a disk in space where fluid energy is simply
extracted from the air. In the Betz turbine the energy extraction manifests itself through
thrust. The equivalent turbine described by Betz would be a horizontal propeller type
operating with infinite blades at infinite tip speed ratios and no losses. The tip speed ratio
is ratio of the speed of the tip relative to the free stream flow. This turbine is not too far

from actual wind turbines. Actual turbines are rotating blades. They typically operate at
high tip speed ratios. At high tip speed ratios three blades are sufficient to interact with
all the air passing through the rotor plane. Actual turbines still produce considerable
thrust forces.
One key difference between actual turbines and the actuator disk, is that the energy is
extracted through torque. The wind imparts a torque on the wind turbine, thrust is a
necessary by-product of torque. Newtonian physics dictates that for every action there is
an equal and opposite reaction. If the wind imparts a torque on the blades then the blades
must be imparting a torque on the wind. This torque would then cause the flow to rotate.
Thus the flow in the wake has two components, axial and tangential. This tangential flow
is referred to as wake rotation.
Torque is necessary for energy extraction. However wake rotation is considered a loss.
Accelerating the flow in the tangential direction increases the absolute velocity. This in
turn increases the amount of kinetic energy in the near wake. This rotational energy is not
dissipated in any form that would allow for a greater pressure drop (Energy extraction).
Thus any rotational energy in the wake is energy that is lost and unavailable.
This loss is minimized by allowing the rotor to rotate very quickly. To the observer it
may seem like the rotor is not moving fast; however, it is common for the tips to be
moving through the air at 6 times the speed of the free stream. Newtonian mechanics
defines power as torque multiplied by the rotational speed. The same amount of power
can be extracted by allowing the rotor to rotate faster and produce less torque. Less
torque means that there is less wake rotation. Less wake rotation means there is more
energy available to extract.

Blade Element and Momentum Theory

The simplest model for horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT) aerodynamics is Blade
Element Momentum (BEM) theory. The theory is based on the assumption that the flow
at a given annulus does not affect the flow at adjacent annuli. This allows the rotor blade
to be analyzed in sections, where the resulting forces are summed over all sections to get
the overall forces of the rotor. The theory uses both axial and angular momentum
balances to determine the flow and the resulting forces at the blade.
The momentum equations for the far field flow dictate that the thrust and torque will
induce a secondary flow in the approaching wind. This in turn affects the flow geometry
at the blade. The blade itself is the source of these thrust and torque forces. The force
response of the blades is governed by the geometry of the flow, or better known as the
angle of attack. Refer to the Airfoil article for more information on how airfoils create lift
and drag forces at various angles of attack. This interplay between the far field
momentum balances and the local blade forces requires one to solve the momentum
equations and the airfoil equations simultaneously. Typically computers and numerical
methods are employed to solve these models.

There is a lot of variation between different version of BEM theory. First, one can
consider the effect of wake rotation or not. Second, one can go further and consider the
pressure drop induced in wake rotation. Third, the tangential induction factors can be
solved with a momentum equation, an energy balance or orthognal geometric constraint;
the latter a result of Biot-Savart law in vortex methods. These all lead to different set of
equations that need to be solved. The simplest and most widely used equations are those
that consider wake rotation with the momentum equation but ignore the pressure drop
from wake rotation. Those equations are given below. a is the axial component of the
induced flow, a' is the tangential component of the induced flow. is the solidity of the
rotor, is the local inflow angle. Cn and Ct are the coefficient of normal force and the
coefficient of tangential force respectively. Both these coefficients are defined with the
resulting lift and drag coefficients of the airfoil:

Corrections to Blade Element Momentum theory

Blade Element Momentum (BEM) theory alone fails to accurately represent the true
physics of real wind turbines. Two major shortcomings are the effect of discrete number
of blades and far field effects when the turbine is heavily loaded. Secondary shortcomings come from dealing with transient effects like dynamic stall, rotational effects
like coriolis and centrifugal pumping, finally geometric effects that arise from coned and
yawed rotors. The current state of the art in BEM uses corrections to deal with the major
shortcoming. These corrections are discussed below. There is as yet no accepted
treatment for the secondary shortcomings. These areas remain a highly active area of
research in wind turbine aerodynamics.
The effect of the discrete number of blades is dealt with by applying the Prandtl tip loss
factor. The most common form of this factor is given below where B is the number of
blades, R is the outer radius and r is the local radius. The definition of F is based on
actuator disk models and not directly applicable to BEM. However the most common
application multiplies induced velocity term by F in the momentum equations. As in the
momentum equation there are many variations for applying F, some argue that the mass
flow should be corrected in either the axial equation, or both axial and tangential
equations. Others have suggested a second tip loss term to account for the reduced blade
forces at the tip. Shown below are the above momentum equations with the most
common application of 'F':

The typical momentum theory applied in BEM is only effective for axial induction
factors up to 0.4 (thrust coefficient of 0.96). Beyond this point the wake collapses and
turbulent mixing occurs. This state is highly transient and largely unpredictable by
theoretical means. Accordingly, several empirical relations have been developed. As the
usual case there are several version, however a simple one that is commonly used is a
linear curve fit given below, with ac = 0.2. The turbulent wake function given excludes
the tip loss function, however the tip loss is applied simply by multiplying the resulting
axial induction by the tip loss function.
when a > ac
Please note the following: do not confuse CT and Ct, the first one is the thrust coefficient
of the rotor, which is the one which should be corrected for high rotor loading (i.e. for
high values of a), whilst the second one (ct) is the tangential aerodynamic coefficient of
an individual blade element, which is given by the aerodynamic lift and drag coefficients.

Other Methods of Aerodynamic Modelling

BEM is widely used due to its simplicity and overall accuracy, but its originating
assumptions limit its use when the rotor disk is yawed, or when other non-axisymmetric
effects (like the rotor wake) influence the flow. Limited success at improving predictive
accuracy has been made using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solvers based on
Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) and other similar three-dimensional models
such as free vortex methods. These are very computationally-intensive simulations to
perform for several reasons. First, the solver must accurately model the far-field flow
conditions, which can extend several rotor diameters up- and down-stream and include
atmospheric boundary layer turbulence, while at the same time resolving the small-scale
boundary-layer flow conditions at the blades' surface (necessary to capture blade stall). In
addition, many CFD solvers have difficulty meshing parts that move and deform, such as
the rotor blades. Finally, there are many dynamic flow phenomena that are not easily
modelled by RANS, such as dynamic stall and tower shadow. Due to the computational
complexity, it is not currently practical to use these advanced methods for wind turbine
design, though research continues in these and other areas related to helicopter and wind
turbine aerodynamics.
Free vortex models (FVM) and Lagrangian particle vortex methods (LPVM) are both
active areas of research that seek to increase modelling accuracy by accounting for more
of the three-dimensional and unsteady flow effects than either BEM or RANS. FVM is

similar to lifting line theory in that it assumes that the wind turbine rotor is shedding
either a continuous vortex filament from the blade tips (and often the root), or a
continuous vortex sheet from the blades' trailing edges. LPVM can use a variety of
methods to introduce vorticity into the wake. Biot-Savart summation is used to determine
the induced flow field of these wake vorticies' circulations, allowing for better
approximations of the local flow over the rotor blades. These methods have largely
confirmed much of the applicability of BEM and shed insight into the structure of wind
turbine wakes. FVM has limitations due to its origin in potential flow theory, such as not
explicitly modelling model viscous behavior, though LPVM is a fully viscous method.
LPVM is more computationally intensive than either FVM or RANS, and FVM still
relies on blade element theory for the blade forces.

Chapter- 12

Wind Farm

Whitelee Wind Farm in Scotland.

The Meyersdale Wind Project in southern Pennsylvania

A wind farm is a group of wind turbines in the same location used for production of
electric power. Individual turbines are interconnected with a medium voltage (usually
34.5 kV) power collection system and communications network. At a substation, this
medium-voltage electrical current is increased in voltage with a transformer for
connection to the high voltage transmission system.
A large wind farm may consist of a few dozen to several hundred individual wind
turbines, and cover an extended area of hundreds of square miles, but the land between
the turbines may be used for agricultural or other purposes. A wind farm may be located
off-shore to take advantage of strong winds blowing over the surface of an ocean or lake.
The world's first wind farm consisting of 20 wind turbines rated at 30 kilowatts each
was installed on the shoulder of Crotched Mountain in southern New Hampshire in
December, 1980. The Roscoe Wind Farm (780 MW) in the state of Texas, United States,
is currently the world's largest wind farm. The Whitelee Wind Farm is the largest wind
farm in Europe, with a total capacity of 322 MW. The Thanet Offshore Wind Project in
United Kingdom is the largest offshore wind farm in the world at 300 MW.

Location planning
A quantity called the Wind Power Density (WPD) is used to select locations for wind
energy development. The WPD is a calculation relating to the effective force of the wind
at a particular location, frequently expressed in term of the elevation above ground level
over a period of time. It takes into account velocity and mass. Color-coded maps are

prepared for a particular area describing, for example, "Mean Annual Power Density, at
50 Meters." The results of the above calculation are used in an index developed by the
National Renewable Energy Lab and referred to as "NREL CLASS." The larger the WPD
calculation the higher it is rated by class.
Wind farm siting can be highly controversial, particularly when sites are picturesque or
environmentally sensitive. Related factors may include having substantial bird life, or
requiring roads to be built through pristine areas. The areas where wind farms are built
are generally non-residential, due to noise concerns and setback requirements.
Access to the power grid is also a factor. The further from the power grid, the more
transmission lines will be needed to span from the farm directly to the power grid.
Alternatively, transformers will have to be built on the premises, depending upon the
types of turbines being used.

Wind speed

Map of available wind power over the United States. Color codes indicate wind power
density class.
As a general rule, wind generators are practical if windspeed is 10 mph (16 km/h or
4.5 m/s) or greater. An ideal location would have a near constant flow of non-turbulent

wind throughout the year, with a minimum likelihood of sudden powerful bursts of wind.
An important factor of turbine siting is also access to local demand or transmission
capacity.
Usually sites are preselected on basis of a wind atlas, and validated with wind
measurements. Meteorological wind data alone is usually not sufficient for accurate siting
of a large wind power project. Collection of site specific data for wind speed and
direction is crucial to determining site potential. Local winds are often monitored for a
year or more, and detailed wind maps constructed before wind generators are installed.
To collect wind data, a meteorological tower is installed with instruments at various
heights along the tower. All towers include anemometers to determine the wind speed
and wind vanes to determine the direction. The towers generally vary in height from 30 to
60 meters. The towers primarily are guyed steel-pipe structures which are used for one to
two years to collect data and then are disassembled and removed. Data is collected by a
data-logging device, which stores and transmits data for analysis. The siting of turbines
during installation (a process known as micro-siting) because a difference of 30 m can
nearly double energy production.
For smaller installations where such data collection is too expensive or time consuming,
the normal way that developers prospect for wind-power sites is to look for trees or
vegetation that are permanently "cast" or deformed by the prevailing winds. Another way
is to use a wind-speed survey map, or historical data from a nearby meteorological
station, although these methods are less reliable.

Altitude
The wind blows faster at higher altitudes because of the reduced influence of drag. The
increase in velocity with altitude is most dramatic near the surface and is affected by
topography, surface roughness, and upwind obstacles such as trees or buildings.
Typically, the increase of wind speeds with increasing height follows a wind profile
power law, which predicts that wind speed rises proportionally to the seventh root of
altitude. Doubling the altitude of a turbine, then, increases the expected wind speeds by
10% and the expected power by 34%.

Wind park effect

The "wind park effect" refers to the loss of output due to mutual interference among
turbines. Wind farms have many turbines, and each extracts some of the energy of the
wind. Where land area is sufficient, turbines are spaced three to five rotor diameters apart
perpendicular to the prevailing wind, and five to ten rotor diameters apart in the direction
of the prevailing wind, to minimize efficiency loss. The loss can be as low as 2% of the
combined "nameplate" rating of the turbines.
In a large wind park, due to "multifractal" effects among individual rotors, the behaviour
deviates significantly from Kolmogorov's turbulence scaling for individual turbines.

Environmental and aesthetic impacts

Livestock grazing near wind turbines.

Compared to the environmental effects of traditional energy sources, the environmental
effects of wind power upon greenhouse gases are minor; however, there are other adverse
impacts of wind power including bird mortality. Wind power consumes no fuel, and
emits no air pollution, unlike fossil fuel power sources. The energy consumed to
manufacture and transport the materials used to build a wind power plant is equal to the
new energy produced by the plant within a few months of operation. Garrett Gross, a
scientist from the University of MissouriKansas City, states, "The impact made on the
environment is very little when compared to what is gained." While a wind farm may
cover a large area of land, many land uses such as agriculture are compatible.
Danger to birds and bats has been a concern in many locations. Some dismiss the number
of birds killed by wind turbines as negligible when compared to the number that die as a
result of other human activities, and especially when considering the adverse
environmental impacts of using non-clean power sources. Others strongly disagree about
the placement of wind farms. New evidence suggests that the critically endangered
California Condor is being killed at the Tehachapi Pass wind farm in Southern California.
Bat species appear to be at risk during key movement periods. Almost nothing is known
about current populations of these species and the impact on bat numbers as a result of

mortality at windpower locations. Offshore wind sites 10 km or more from shore do not
interact with bat populations, but researchers are concerned if there are nearby bird
colonies.
Aesthetics have also been an issue in some areas. In the USA, the Massachusetts Cape
Wind project was delayed for years chiefly because of nearby residents' aesthetic
concerns. In the UK, repeated opinion surveys have shown that more than 70% of people
either like, or do not mind, the visual impact. According to a town councillor in
Ardrossan, Scotland, the overwhelming majority of locals believe that the Ardrossan
Wind Farm has enhanced the area. They say the turbines are impressive looking and
bring a calming effect to the town.

Effect on power grid

Utility-scale wind farms must have access to transmission lines to transport energy. The
wind farm developer may be obligated to install extra equipment or control systems in the
wind farm to meet the technical standards set by the operator of a transmission line. The
company or person that develops the wind farm can then sell the power on the grid
through the transmission lines and ultimately chooses whether to hold on to the rights or
sell the farm or parts of it to big business like GE, for example.

Types
Onshore
Onshore turbine installations in hilly or mountainous regions tend to be on ridgelines
generally three kilometers or more inland from the nearest shoreline. This is done to
exploit the so-called topographic acceleration as the wind accelerates over a ridge. The
additional wind speeds gained in this way make a significant difference to the amount of
energy that is produced. Great attention must be paid to the exact positions of the turbines
(a process known as micro-siting) because a difference of 30 m can sometimes mean a
doubling in output.

Offshore

Offshore wind turbines near Copenhagen.

Offshore wind turbines are less obtrusive than turbines on land, as their apparent size and
noise is mitigated by distance. Because water has less surface roughness than land
(especially deeper water), the average wind speed is usually considerably higher over
open water. Capacity factors (utilisation rates) are considerably higher than for onshore
and nearshore locations.
Transporting large wind turbine components (tower sections, nacelles, and blades) is
much easier over water than on land, because ships and barges can handle large loads
more easily than trucks/lorries or trains. On land, large goods vehicles must negotiate
bends on roadways, which fixes the maximum length of a wind turbine blade that can
move from point to point on the road network; no such limitation exists for transport on
open water.
Offshore wind turbines will probably continue to be the largest turbines in operation,
since the high fixed costs of the installation are spread over more energy production,
reducing the average cost. Turbine components (rotor blades, tower sections) can be
transported by barge, making large parts easier to transport offshore than on land, where
turn clearances and underpass clearances of available roads limit the size of turbine
components that can be moved by truck. Similarly, large construction cranes are difficult
to move to remote wind farms on land, but crane vessels easily move over water.
Offshore wind farms can be large. The Horns Rev array has 80 turbines and as of
September 2010, the Thanet Wind Farm is the world's largest off-shore installation with
100 turbines.
Several European and two Asian countries have offshore wind farms, which supply local
clean, renewable energy. Although land-based turbines are prevalent in the United States,
there are no offshore wind farms in U.S. waters. However, projects are under
development in wind-rich areas of the East Coast, Great Lakes, and Pacific coast.

Fixed-bottom, foundation-based tower technologies

In areas with extended shallow continental shelves, water not deeper than 40 m
(130 feet), windy but without Category 4 or higher storms, fixed-bottom turbines are now
available and practical to install. As of 2009, the economic feasibility of shallow-water
offshore wind technologies is well understood. With empirical data obtained from fixedbottom installations off many countries for over a decade now, representative costs are
well understood. Shallow-water turbines cost between 2.4 and 3 million United States
dollars per megawatt to install, according to the World Energy Council.
Offshore installation monopile wind turbines are generally more expensive than onshore
installations but this depends on the attributes of the site. Offshore fixed-bottom towers
are generally taller than onshore towers once the submerged height is included. Offshore
foundations may be more expensive to build. Power transmission from offshore turbines
is through undersea cable, often using high voltage direct current operation if significant

distance is to be covered. Offshore saltwater environments also raise maintenance costs

by corroding the towers, but fresh-water locations such as the Great Lakes do not.
Repairs and maintenance are usually more costly than on onshore turbines, motivating
operators to reduce the number of wind turbines for a given total power by installing the
largest available units. An example is Belgium's Thorntonbank Wind Farm with
construction underway in 2008, featuring 5 MW wind turbines from REpower, which
were among the largest wind turbines in the world at the time. Offshore saltwater wind
turbines are outfitted with extensive corrosion protection measures including coatings and
cathodic protection, which may not be required in fresh water locations.

Examples
The United Kingdom plans to use offshore wind turbines to generate enough power to
light every home in the U.K. by 2020, and as of 2010 the United Kingdom has by far the
largest capacity of offshore wind farms with 1.3 GW, more than the rest of the world
combined.
The province of Ontario in Canada is pursuing several proposed nearshore locations in
the Great Lakes, including Trillium Power Wind 1 approximately 20 km from shore and
over 400 MW in size. Other Canadian projects include one on the Pacific west coast.

REpower 5MW wind turbines D4 (nearest) to D1 on the Thornton Bank

As of 2008, Europe leads the world in development of fixed-bottom offshore wind
power, due to strong wind resources and shallow water in the North Sea and the Baltic
Sea, and limitations on suitable locations on land due to dense populations and existing
developments. Denmark installed the first offshore wind farms, and for years was the
world leader in offshore wind power until the United Kingdom gained the lead in
October, 2008, with 590 MW of nameplate capacity installed. The United Kingdom
planned to build much more extensive offshore wind farms by 2020. Other large markets
for wind power, including the United States and China focused first on developing their
on-land wind resources where construction costs are lower (such as in the Great Plains of
the U.S., and the similarly wind-swept steppes of Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia in China),
but population centers along coastlines in many parts of the world are close to offshore

wind resources, which would reduce transmission costs. In 2010, China commissioned
the Donghai Bridge Wind Farm.
On 21 December 2007, Q7 (later renamed as Princess Amalia Wind Farm) exported first
power to the Dutch grid, which was a milestone for the Dutch offshore wind industry.
The 120 MW offshore wind farm with a construction budget of 383 million was the first
to be financed by a nonrecourse loan (project finance). The project comprises 60 Vestas
V80-2MW wind turbines. Each turbine's tower rests on a monopile foundation to a depth
of between 1823 meters at a distance of about 23 km off the Dutch coast.

Deep-water, floating turbine technologies

The worlds first full-scale floating wind turbine, Hywind, being assembled near
Stavanger, Norway, before deployment in the North Sea.
New deep-water, floating-turbine technologies are only recently beginning to be
deployed. The first large-capacity floating wind turbine is the Hywind, a 2.3 MW turbine
mounted on a 120-meter-tall tower in 220-meter-deep water in the North Sea off of
Stavanger, Norway. It will be tested for two years. The unit was constructed during the
summer of 2009 and became operational in September, 2009.
Until 2003, existing offshore wind turbine technology deployments had been limited to
water depths of 30-meters utilizing fixed-bottom technology, which necessarily limited
deployments to the near-coastal sea surface.

Worldwide deep-water wind resources are extremely abundant in deep-water areas with
depths up to 600 meters, which are thought to best facilitate transmission of the generated
electric power to shore communities. The U.S. deep-water wind resource is second only
to China. Although limited early conceptual work on deep-water floating turbine
technologies was done in 1972, it was not until the mid 1990s, after the onshore,
foundation-tower, commercial wind industry was well established, that design of deepwater technologies was taken up again by the mainstream research community.
Assessment the offshore wind resource is undertaken by offshore meteorological masts,
computer modelling or satellite measurements e.g. WindScan

Airborne
Airborne wind turbines would eliminate the cost of towers and might also be flown in
high speed winds at high altitude. No such systems are in commercial operation.

Wind farm capacity

Brazos Wind Farm in the plains of West Texas

Albania
1. Vlor Wind Farm (500 MW) - 250 turbines
2. Kryevidhi Wind Farm (150 MW) - 75 turbines

Antarctic

A three-turbine wind farm opened in early 2010 on Ross Island, providing all the
power for New Zealand's Antarctic programme as well some electricity to
America's McMurdo Station.

Australia
There are a number of Wind farms currently operating in Australia. Some of the largest
wind farms in Australia are:

Lake Bonney Wind Farm (SA) - 239.5 MW

Woolnorth Wind Farm (TAS) - 140 MW
Brown Hill Range Wind Farm (Hallett, SA) - 94.5 MW
Wattle Point (SA) - 90.75 MW
Alinta/Walkaway (WA) - 90 MW
Emu Downs Wind Farm (WA) - 80 MW
Mount Millar Wind Farm (SA) - 70 MW

Wind farms currently under construction are:

Collgar Wind Farm (WA) - 206 MW

Barbados
During the 1980s the country of Barbados experimented with the construction of a wind
turbine at the Lamberts, St. Lucy area of Barbados. A lone tower was built for testing
purposes after it was determined that this part of the island had the best potential for the
usage of wind power. The Barbados Light and Power Company (BL&P) Co. met
opposition due to concerns by local residents about noise concerns. Attempts have been
made to replace the current abandoned wind turbine, but opposition continues to mount
against the development of the 11 additional turbines for the site which could provide an
estimated roughly 10 MW of energy. The Government of Barbados has also reiterated its
commitment to developing wind power but has been unsuccessful to date in the last five
years.

Brazil
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

So Gonalo do Amarante/CE (10 Turbines)

Prainha de Aquiraz-CE (20 Turbines)
Mucuripe-CE (4 Turbines)
Fernando de Noronha Island-PE 1&2 (2 Turbines)
Olinda-PE 1&2 (2 Turbines)
Morro do Camelinho-MG (4 Turbines)
Palmas-PR (5 Turbines)
Osrio-RS (75 Turbines)

9. Rio do Fogo - RN (61 turbines)

Canada

Huron Wind farm in Tiverton, Ontario, Canada, includes five Vestas V80s installed in
November 2002
The total capacity of all wind farms in Canada is 2,369 MW as of January, 2009. There
are currently no operating wind farms in Nunavut (territory) or the Northwest Territories.
The largest wind farms in Canada are:
1. Melancthon EcoPower Centre - Shelburne, Ontario, 199.5 MW
2. Wolfe Island Wind Project - Kingston, Ontario, 197.8 MW
3. Prince Project Phase I & II - Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, 189 MW
4. Enbridge Ontario Wind Farm - Bruce County, Ontario, 181 MW
5. Murdochville Project; Phase I & II & III - Murdochville, Quebec, 162 MW
6. Centennial Wind Power Facility - Swift Current, Saskatchewan, 149.4 MW
7. Carleton Wind Farm - Carleton, Quebec, 109.5 MW
8. Bear Mountain Wind Park - Dawson Creek, British Columbia, 102 MW
9. Port Alma Wind Farm - Chatham-Kent, Ontario 101 MW
10. Anse--Valleau Wind Farm - Gasp, Quebec, 100.5 MW

China
Having more than doubled its installed wind power capacity each year from 20052009,
China grew its wind power faster on a percentage basis than any other large country.
With wind power investment of US$600 million in 2006 and total installed capacity of
2300 MW, China was the eighth largest wind-power producer in the world. At the end of
2007, China had increased its installed capacity to just over 6000 MW to move into fifth
place globally. The Chinese wind industry reached the official target of 5 GW for the

year 2010 three years early, so policymakers doubled the target to 10 GW; however, by
the end of 2009 China had already reached 25 GW, having installed more new wind
power generating capacity in 2009 than any other country. Chinese analysts estimate that
the total potential wind power generating capacity in China exceeds 1000 GW. Large
wind resources are in the northern part of the country, including Xinjiang and Inner
Mongolia, with vast windswept plains constituting China's "wind belt" similar to the
Great Plains of the United States and Canada. Wind power development is increasing
incomes and tourism in these formerly remote regions.

European Union

A wind farm in a mountainous area in Galicia, Spain

Wind farm in Lower Saxony, Germany

Germany has the second largest number of wind farms in the world after the United
States. Its installed capacity was 20,622 MW as of December 2006. The second country
in capacity was Spain with 11,615 MW. The third was Denmark with 3,136 MW. Italy
was in the fourth position, with 2,123 MW.
In May 2006, operational wind farms in the UK comprised an installed capacity of 1,693
MW, in Portugal 1188 MW, in France 918 MW and in Ireland 1255 MW as of the 1st
March 2009. A 322 MW wind farm Whitelee, south of Glasgow, Scotland, is the biggest
wind farm in Europe, 55 km sq.. The 350 million farm was built for Scottish Power and
the 140 wind turbines were delivered by Siemens.
In 2006, the British government gave planning consent for the world's largest offshore
wind farm, the 'London Array'. It is to be built 12 miles off of the Kent coast and will
include 341 turbines. A small farm of eight turbines has been erected at North Pickenham
run by Enertrag UK Ltd with two smaller units at nearby Swaffham run by Ecotricity.
An important limiting factor of wind power is variable power generated by wind farms.
In most locations the wind blows only part of the time, which means that there has to be
back-up capacity of conventional generating capacity to cover periods that the wind is not
blowing. To address this issue it has been proposed to create a "supergrid" to connect
national grids together across western Europe, ranging from Denmark across the
southern North Sea to England and the Celtic Sea to Ireland, and further south to France
and Spain especially in Higueruela which was considered for some time the biggest wind

farm in the world. The idea is that by the time a low pressure area has moved away from
Denmark to the Baltic Sea the next low appears off the coast of Ireland. Therefore, while
it is true that the wind is not blowing everywhere all of the time, it will always be
blowing somewhere. Such a supergrid would therefore reduce the need for backup
capacity.

India

A wind farm in Aralvaimozhy, Tamil Nadu, India

At the end of October 2009, India had 11806.69 MW of wind generating capacity and is
the fifth largest market in the world. Indian Wind Energy Association has estimated that
with the current level of technology, the on-shore potential for utilization of wind
energy for electricity generation is of the order of 65,000 MW. There are about a dozen
wind pumps of various designs providing water for agriculture, afforestation, and
domestic purposes, all scattered over the country. The wind farms are predominantly
present in the states of Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Gujarat. Other states
like Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh have a very good potential.

Iran

Manjeel,Iran

Japan

Manjil and Rudbar Wind Farm (100.8 MW - 171 turbines)

Binalood wind farm (28.2 MW - 43 turbines) "Under construction"
Jarandaq wind farm (60 MW - 40 turbines) "Being studied"

Wakamatsu wind farm, Kitakyushu, Japan

The Wakamatsu ward Hibikinada Wind Farm in Kitakyushu is far from the scenic areas
of Wakamatsu, and on windy reclaimed land. Asahi Shimbun reported on May 18, 2005,
that many utilities have put limits on the amount of wind power they will allow, because
of lack of confidence in their ability to deal with the variable output.
A partial list of wind farms in Japan include:

Hibikinada Wind Farm (10 turbines)

Aoyama Plateau Wind Farm (32 turbines)
Nunobiki Plateau Wind Farm (33 turbines)
Seto Wind Farm (11 turbines)

A number of smaller projects are run by the Japan Wind Development Company, LTD.

Morocco
1.
2.
3.
4.

Tarfaya Wind Farm (200 MW) "Under construction"

Tangier Wind Farm (140 MW - 165 turbines) "Under construction"
Amogdoul Farm (60 MW)
Touahar Farm (60 MW) "Under construction"

5. Koudia Al Baida Farm (50 MW - 84 turbines)

New Zealand
New Zealand is located in the northern latitudes of the 'roaring 40s' an abundant wind
energy resource. The Brooklyn Wind Turbine was installed on the top of a hill in
Brooklyn, Wellington in March 1993 as part of a research project commissioned by the
now defunct Electricity Corporation of New Zealand. Later in 1996, Wairarapa
Electricity (became part of Genesis Energy in 1999) built the Hau Nui Wind Farm, New
Zealand's first wind farm, south east of Martinborough on the coastal road to White
Rock. Meridian Energy recently applied for, and obtained with conditions, resource
consent to build a consignment of wind farms in the rural Makara Hill area west of
Wellington. Meridian Energy have finished the Te Apiti Wind Farm on the Ruahine
Ranges. It can be seen clearly at Ashhurst near Palmerston North. The Te Rere Hau Wind
Farm is under construction nearby. Meridian Energy's White Hill wind farm at Mossburn
in the South Island, reached full capacity in 2007. TrustPower purchased the Tararua
wind farm, located on the Tararua Ranges behind Palmerston North, from Tararua Wind
Power Limited. As of September 2007 this was New Zealand's largest wind farm, and the
largest in the southern hemisphere, with an installed capacity of 161MW, half of the
country's total installed capacity. Applications for resource consent have been submitted
for several new wind farms, with a total potential capacity of 1900MW as of late 2007.

Philippines

Bangui Windfarm, Philippines

The NorthWind Bangui Bay Project, in Bangui, Ilocos Norte is the first wind farm in the
Philippines. It consists of wind turbines on-shore facing the South China Sea. The project
is considered to be the biggest in Southeast Asia. The project sells electricity to the Ilocos
Norte Electric Cooperative (INEC) and provides 40% of the power requirements of
Ilocos Norte via Transco Laoag.

South Africa
The first commercial wind farm in South Africa was opened on the 23rd of May 2008,
near Darling in the Western Cape. The first phase consists of four 1.3MW turbines
supplied by Fuhrlander, Germany. The total power generated estimated at 5.2MW will be
put into the national grid at 66kV. It has taken the developer Herman Oelsner 10 years to
achieve his dream of being the first private wind farm in South Africa. There has been
serious concerns regarding environmental and aviation matters some of which are still
under investigation. Fuhrlaender will be responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of
the wind farm until 2011 with the assistance of locally trained technicians.
Additionally, Klipheuwel wind farm, the first wind farm in sub-Saharan Africa,
comprises three turbines a Vestas V66 with 1.75 MW output, a Vestas V47 with
660 kW output and a Jeumont J48 with 750 kW output, giving a total output of almost
3.2 MW.

United States
The United States is the leading country in installed capacity and produced windpower in
the world. After pioneering windpower in the 1980s, it surpassed Germany again in 2008.
The American Wind Energy Association stated the United States had 21,000 MW of
wind energy capacity at the end of that year. A total of 8,538 MW were added in 2008.
At the end of March 2008, the United States wind power capacity was 18,302 MW,
enough to serve 4.9 million average households. Currently, the largest wind farm in the
US and the world is the Roscoe Wind Farm (780 MW) in Texas. Prior to this, the largest
wind farm was Florida Power & Light's 735 MW Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center,
located in Taylor County, Texas. Other larger projects have been proposed or are under
development.
Three large California wind "farms" developed in the 1980s at three major mountain
passes are collections of dozens of individual wind farms. The California farms have
many different owners and turbine types. They have been constructed, retrofitted and
occasionally dismantled since they were first installed in late 1982. As of 2005, all three
of these areas are seeing renewed growth. Older and smaller wind turbines are being
replaced with much larger, more efficient models. Some of the workhorses of the past
were only 65 kilowatts (kW) in capacity or even smaller, though some were several
hundred kW. Today, a few models approach 6,000 kW (6 MW). Non-functional turbines
are also being returned to service.

The majority of the San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm as viewed from the San Jacinto
Mountains to the south. (The farm continues over the hills to the north along California
State Route 62 and is not visible from this vantagepoint). The layout includes a variety of
large modern and older smaller turbine designs
Although California has some of the earliest and largest wind farms in the U.S., the state
does not have many commercially viable wind farm sites onshore. Much of the
Southwest is not much better, although there are some significant exceptions. The Great
Plains states have an abundance of suitable sites for wind energy development. The
region has become the major supplier of U.S. wind power. Texas (located in the South) is
the leading wind power state in the U.S., followed by Iowa in the Midwest. The Pacific
Northwest and the Northeast have many excellent sites as well.
In contrast, the Southeast generally has few wind energy resources. A recent study has
found that an off-shore region of the Georgia coast may prove to be a commercially
viable wind power resource. The Appalachian Mountains may also provide promising
areas for wind turbine installation.

Chapter- 13

Windmill

This Dutch windmill in Amsterdam was built in 1757 and is identified as De 1100 Roe. It
is a smock mill of the type called by the Dutch a grondzeiler ("ground sailer"), since the
sails almost reach the ground.

A windmill is a machine which converts the energy of wind into rotational motion by
means of adjustable vanes called sails. The main use is for a grinding mill powered by the
wind, reducing a solid or coarse substance into pulp or minute grains, by crushing,
grinding, or pressing. Windmills have also provided energy to sawmills, paper mills,
hammermills, and windpumps for obtaining fresh water from underground or for
drainage (especially of land below sea level).

History

A diagram of the windwheel of Heron of Alexandria, 1st century, C.E.

The windwheel of the Greek engineer Heron of Alexandria in the 1st century marks one
of the first known instances of wind powering a machine in history. Another early

example of a wind-driven wheel was the prayer wheel, which was used in ancient Tibet
and China since the 4th century B.C..

Vertical-axis windmills

The Persian, vertical-axis windmill

The first practical windmills were the vertical-axis windmills invented in eastern Persia
(what is now Afghanistan), as recorded by the Persian geographer Estakhri in the 9th
century. The authenticity of an earlier anecdote of a windmill involving the second caliph
Umar (AD 634644) is questioned on the grounds that it appears in a 10th-century
document. Made of six to twelve sails covered in reed matting or cloth material, these
windmills were used to grind grain or draw up water, and were quite different from the
later European horizontal-axis versions. Windmills were in widespread use across the
Middle East and Central Asia, and later spread to China and India from there.
Some popular treatments of the subject have speculated that, by the 9th century, the
Persian-style vertical-axle mills spread to Europe through Al-Andalus (Islamic Spain).
This has been denied by the specialist of medieval European technology, Lynn White Jr.,
who points out that there is no evidence (archaeological or documentary) that the
Afghanistan-style vertical-axle windmill spread as far west as Al-Andalus, and notes that
"all Iberian windmills rotated on horizontal axles until towards the middle of the fifteenth
century." Another historian of technology, Michael Jonathan Taunton Lewis, suggested
an alternative route of transmission for the Islamic horizontal-shaft windmill, with its
diffusion to the Byzantine Empire and its subsequent transformation into the verticalshaft windmill in Europe. Late medieval vertical-axle windmills similar to the
Islamic/Persian design can be found along this route, particularly in Karpathos, Greece,

and Kandia, Crete. The Crusades has also been suggested as another possible route of
transmission, though in the sense of "stimulus diffusion," where the idea was diffused
rather than the technology itself. However, the debate about whether the European
vertical-shaft windmill evolved from the Islamic horizontal-shaft windmill or was an
independent development remains unresolved.

Horizontal-axis windmills

Fixed windmills
Fixed windmills, oriented to the prevailing wind were extensively used in the Cyclades
islands of Greece. The economies of power and transport allowed the use of these
'offshore' mills for grinding grain transported from the mainland and flour returned. A
1/10th share of the flour was paid to the miller in return for his service. This type would
mount triangular sails when in operation.
A similar type of vertical-shaft windmill with rectangle blades, used for irrigation, can
also be found in 13th-century China (during the Jurchen Jin Dynasty in the north),
introduced by the travels of Yel Chucai to Turkestan in 1219.

Windmills that turn to face the wind

Diagram of the smock mill at Meopham, Kent which uses a fantail and Cubitt's patent
sails
In northwestern Europe, the horizontal-axle or vertical windmill (so called due to the
dimension of the movement of its sails) dates from the last quarter of the 12th century in
the triangle of northern France, eastern England and Flanders. Lynn White Jr. claims that
the first certain reference to the European horizontal-axle windmill is dated to 1185 in
Weedley, Yorkshire. (This predates Joseph Needham's claim that the earliest known
reference is from the 1191 chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond, in which a Dean Herbert of
East Anglia supposedly competed with the mills of the abbey of Bury St Edmunds).
These earliest mills were used to grind cereals. The evidence at present is that the earliest

type was the sunk post mill, so named because of the large upright post on which the
mill's main structure (the "body" or "buck") is balanced. By mounting the body this way,
the mill is able to rotate to face the wind direction; an essential requirement for windmills
to operate economically in North-Western Europe, where wind directions are variable.
By the end of the thirteenth century the masonry tower mill, on which only the timber cap
rotated rather than the whole body of the mill, had been introduced. In the Netherlands
these stone towerlike mills are called "round or eight-sided stone stage mills, groundsailers (windmills with sails reaching almost down to the ground), mound mills, etc."
(Dutch: ronde/achtkante stenen stelling molens, grond-zeilers, beltmolens, etc.). Dutch
tower mills ("torenmolens") are always cylindrical (such as atop castle or city wall
towers). Because only the cap of the tower mill needed to be turned the main structure
could be made much taller, allowing the sails to be made longer, which enabled them to
provide useful work even in low winds. Such mills often have a small auxiliary set of
sails called a fantail at the rear of the cap and at right angles to the sails; this rotates the
cap through gearing so that the sails face into the wind.
Windmills were often built on top of castle towers or city walls, and were a unique part of
a number of fortifications in New France, such as at Fort Senneville.
The familiar lattice style of windmill sails (also called "common" sails) allowed the
miller to attach sailcloths to the sails (while applying a brake). Trimming the sails
allowed the windmill to turn at near the optimal speed in a large range of wind velocities.
The fantail, a small windmill mounted at right angles to the main sails which
automatically turns the heavy cap and main sails into the wind, was invented by Edmund
Lee in 1745, in England. The smock mill is a later variation of the tower mill, constructed
of timber and originally developed in the sixteenth century for land drainage. With some
subsequent development mills became versatile in windy regions for all kind of industry,
most notably grain grinding mills, sawmills (late 16th century), threshing, and, by
applying scoop wheels, Archimedes screws, and piston pumps, pumping water either for
land drainage or for water supply. In 1772, Scottish millwright, Andrew Meikle
developed the spring sail made from a series of connected parallel shutters that could be
opened or closed according to windspeed. To do this the sails had to be stopped, but the
sails also incorporated a spring which allowed the shutters to open a little more to prevent
damage if the wind suddenly strengthens. In 1789, Stephen Hooper invented the roller
reefing sail, which allowed automatic adjustment of the sail whilst in motion. In 1807,
William Cubitt a Norfolk engineer, invented a new type of sail, known there on as patent
sails, using a chain and a rod that passed through the centre of the windshaft. These sails
had the shutters of Meikle's spring sails and the automatic adjustment of Hooper's roller
reefing sails. This became the basis of self-regulating sails. These avoided the constant
supervision that had been required up till then.
By the 19th Century there were some 10,000 corn mills operating in Britain, but with the
coming of the industrial revolution, the importance of wind as primary industrial energy
source was replaced by steam and internal combustion engines. The increased use of
steam, and later diesel power, however, had a lesser effect on the mills of the Norfolk
Broads, these being so isolated (on extensive uninhabitable marshland) that some of them

continued service (albeith for another use) until as late as 1959. More recently windmills
have been preserved for their historic value, in some cases as static exhibits when the
antique machinery is too fragile to put in motion, and in other cases as fully working
mills. There are around 50 working mills in operation in Britain as of 2009.

Multi-sailed windmills

An eight sailed Windmill at Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, UK

The majority of windmills had four sails. An increase in the number of sails meant that an
increase in power could be obtained, at the expense of an increase in the weight of the
sail assembly. The earliest record of a multi-sailed mill in the United Kingdom was the
five sail Flint Mill, Leeds, mentioned in a report by John Smeaton in 1774. Multi-sailed

windmills were said to run smoother than four sail windmills. In Lincolnshire, more
multi-sailed windmills were found than anywhere else in the United Kingdom. There
were five, six and eight sail windmills.
If a four sail windmill suffers a damaged sail, the one opposite can be removed and the
mill will work with two sails, generating about 60% of the power that it would with all
four sails. A six sail mill can run with two, three, four or six sails. An eight sail mill can
run with two, four, six or eight sails, thus allowing a number of options if an accident
occurs. A five sail mill can only run with all five sails. If one is damaged then the mill is
stopped until it is replaced. Apart from the UK, multi-sail mills were built in Germany,
Malta and the USA.

Gearing

An isometric drawing of the machinery of the Beebe Windmill. It was built in

Bridgehampton, NY in 1820.
In general, the gearing inside a regular windmill has as a main function to convey the
power from the rotary motion of the rotor (which connects to the windblades/windmill
sails) to another device (and possibly convert the rotary motion into a reciprocating
motion in the process). This could be a grist mill, saw blades, hammers or other devices.
The power conveying is done by means of a windshaft, which connects to the rotor. The
windshaft in turn connects to the Upright shaft. Regular windmills do not contain a
gearbox. Rather, if a greater or slower speed is required for a specific part, the connecting
part is instead locally fitted with smaller/greater cogs (which increase/decrease the
speed).

Task specific gearing/operation

With wind-powered grinding mills, there is also a governor present. This device increases
or decreases the space between the grinding stones as the windblades pick up more/less
wind (which increases/decreases the rotation speed). As the rotation of the stones goes
faster, the grinding stones have the tendency to increase the opening between them,
which would (if not corrected) result in a unhulled grain. Before the governor was
invented, the miller would need to correct this manually.
Besides the obvious driving of the grinding stones (usually up to 3 via the windshaft),it
also drives other devices as well such as the sack hoist. The upright shaft drives pretreatment devices such as those for winnowing or threshing.

Uses
As wind-pumping devices

In the Netherlands, wind-powered pumps were important for the reclamation of

flooded land.
The Norfolk Broads, used windmills for powering drainage pumps until as late as
1959.
In New France, particularly in Canada, they also doubled as strong points in
fortifications. Prior to the 1690 Battle of Qubec, the strong point of the city's
landward defenses was a windmill called Mont-Carmel, where a three-gun battery
was in place. At Fort Senneville, a large stone windmill was built on a hill by late
1686, doubling as a watch tower. This windmill was like no other in New France,
with thick walls, square loopholes for muskets, with machicolation at the top for
pouring lethally hot liquids and rocks onto attackers. This helped make it the
"most substantial castle-like fort" near Montreal.
In the United States, the development of the water-pumping windmill was the
major factor in allowing the farming and ranching of vast areas of North America,
which were otherwise devoid of readily accessible water. They contributed to the
expansion of rail transport systems throughout the world, by pumping water from
wells to supply the needs of the steam locomotives of those early times. Two
prominent brands were the Eclipse Windmill developed in 1867 (which was later
bought by Fairbanks-Morse) and the Aermotor, which first appeared in 1888 and
is still in production. The effectiveness of the Aermotor's automatic governor,
which prevents it from flying apart in a windstorm, led to its popularity over other
models. Currently, the Aermotor windmill company is the only remaining water
windmill manufacturer in the United States. They continue to be used in areas of
the world where a connection to electric power lines is not a realistic option.

As electricity production systems

In the early 1980s, several small companies started wind farms for commercial energy
production in the San Joaquin valley region of California. The first such wind farm was
created in 1981 when John Eckland, of Fayette Manufacturing Corporation placed the
first windmills on land leased from Joe Jess, Sr. on the Altamont Pass. Later, as a gift to
Mr. Jess for the continued use of his land, Fayette created a 'stars and stripes' themed
windmill.

Interior view, Pantigo windmill, East Hampton, New York. Historic American Buildings
Survey
At one point in the mid-80s there were over twenty-six wind farm companies operating in
this area of the United States. This eventually expanded to areas outside of Palm Springs,
as seen as backdrops in several films of the era, such as Less Than Zero. However, later
legislative efforts by California lawmakers eliminated the financial incentives and tax
breaks that made these early alternative energy projects feasible (Fisher, 1985). Similar
tax credits and incentives have brought a resurgence in interest in renewable energy
sources in other areas of the country (Maloney, 2006).
Windmills and related equipment are still manufactured and installed today on farms and
ranches, usually in remote parts of the western United States where electric power is not
readily available. The arrival of electricity in rural areas, brought by the Rural

Electrification Administration (REA) in the 1930s through 1950s, contributed to the

decline in the use of windmills in the US. Today, the increases in energy prices and the
expense of replacing electric pumps has led to an increase in the repair, restoration and
installation of new windmills.

Other

Gristmills, or corn mills, grind grains into flour. These were undoubtedly the most
common kind of mill.
Fulling or walk mills were used for a finishing process on cloth.
Sawmills cut timber into lumber.
Bark Mills ground bark from trees to powder for use in tanneries.
Spoke mills turned lumber into spokes for carriage wheels.
Cotton mills (initially used only to spin yarn) were usually powered by a water
wheel at the beginning of the industrial revolution.
Bobbin Mills made wooden bobbins for the cotton and other textile industries.
Carpet mills for making carpets and rugs were sometimes water-powered.
Textile mills for spinning yarn or weaving cloth were sometimes water-powered.
Powder mills for making gunpowder - black powder or smokeless powder were
usually water-powered.
Blade mills were used for sharpening newly made blades.
Slitting mills were used for slitting bars of iron into rods, which were then made
into nails.
Rolling mills shaped metal by passing it between rollers.
Lead was usually smelted in smeltmills prior to the introduction of the cupola (a
reverberatory furnace).
Paper mills used water not only for motive power, but also required it in large
quantities in the manufacturing process.
Stamp mills for crushing ore, usually from non-ferrous mines
Needle mills for scouring needles during manufacture were mostly water-powered
(such as Forge Mill Needle Museum)
Oil mills for crushing oil seeds might be wind or water-powered

Chapter- 14

Environmental Effects of Wind Power

Livestock ignore wind turbines, and continue to graze as they did before wind turbines
were installed.
A European Commission report has found wind to have the lowest external costs,
comprising human health impacts, building and crop damage, global warming, loss of
amenities and ecological impact, when compared to coal, oil, gas, biomass, nuclear,
hydro and photovoltaic electricity generation.

Energy derived from wind power consumes no fuel, and emits no air pollution. A study
by Lenzen and Munksgaard of the University of Sydney and the Danish Institute for
Local Governmental Studies finds that the energy consumed in manufacturing and
transporting the materials used to build a wind power plant is paid back within months.
Mark Diesendorf, Director of Sustainability Centre, states that wind installations in
agricultural areas take very little land and are compatible with grazing and crops.
There are reports of bird and bat mortality at wind turbines, as there are around other
artificial structures. The scale of the ecological impact may or may not be significant,
depending on the particular site. Prevention and mitigation of wildlife fatalities, and
protection of peat bogs, affect the siting and operation of wind turbines.
There are conflicting reports about the effects of noise on people who live very close to a
wind turbine.

Carbon dioxide emissions and pollution

Wind power consumes no fuel for continuing operation, and has no emissions directly
related to electricity production. Wind turbines produce no carbon dioxide, sulfur
dioxide, mercury, particulates, or any other type of air pollution, as do fossil fuel power
sources. Wind power plants consume resources in manufacturing and construction.
During manufacture of the wind turbine, steel, concrete, aluminum and other materials
will have to be made and transported using energy-intensive processes, generally using
fossil energy sources. The wind turbine manufacturer Vestas claims that initial carbon
dioxide emissions "pay back" is within about 9 months of operation for off shore
turbines.
A 2006 study found the CO2 emissions of wind power to range from 14 to 33 tonnes per
GWh of energy produced. Most of the CO2 emission comes from producing the concrete
for wind-turbine foundations.
A study by the Irish national grid stated that "Producing electricity from wind reduces the
consumption of fossil fuels and therefore leads to emissions savings", and found
reductions in CO2 emissions ranging from 0.33 to 0.59 tonnes of CO2 per MWh.
The UKERC study of intermittency also states that wind energy can displace fossil fuelbased generation, reducing both fuel use and carbon dioxide emissions.

Net energy gain

The initial carbon dioxide emission from energy used in the installation is "paid back"
within about 9 months of operation for off shore turbines. Any practical large-scale
energy source must replace the energy used in its construction. The energy return on
investment (EROI) for wind energy is equal to the cumulative electricity generated

divided by the cumulative primary energy required to build and maintain a turbine. The
EROI for wind ranges from 5 to 35, with an average of around 18, according to windenergy advocates. EROI is strongly proportional to turbine size, and larger lategeneration turbines are at the high end of this range, at or above 35. Since energy
produced is several times energy consumed in construction, there is a net energy gain.

Ecology
Land use

Wind farm near an open-pit coal mine in Germany. Wind farms are often built on or near
land that has already been impacted by land clearing.

In the United States, landowners typically receive $3,000 to $5,000 per year in rental
income from each wind turbine, while farmers continue to grow crops or graze cattle up
to the foot of the turbines.

A wind turbine at Greenpark, Reading, England, producing electricity for around one
thousand homes
Wind farms are often built on land that has already been impacted by land clearing. The
vegetation clearing and ground disturbance required for wind farms is minimal compared
with coal mines and coal-fired power stations. If wind farms are decommissioned, the
landscape can be returned to its previous condition.
Farmers and graziers often lease land to companies building wind farms. In the U.S.,
farmers may receive annual lease payments of two thousand to five thousand dollars per
turbine. The land can still be used for farming and cattle grazing. Livestock are
unaffected by the presence of wind farms. International experience shows that livestock

will "graze right up to the base of wind turbines and often use them as rubbing posts or
for shade".
Wind-energy advocates contend that less than 1% of the land would be used for
foundations and access roads, the other 99% could still be used for farming. Critics point
out that the clearing of trees around tower bases may be necessary for installation sites on
mountain ridges, such as in the northeastern U.S.
Turbines are not generally installed in urban areas. Buildings interfere with wind,
turbines must be sited a safe distance ("setback") from residences in case of failure, and
the value of land is high. However, there are a few notable exceptions. Toronto Hydro
has built a lake shore demonstration project, and Steel Winds is a 20 MW urban project
south of Buffalo, New York. Both of these projects are in urban locations, but benefit
from being on uninhabited lake shore property.
In the UK there has also been concern about the damage caused to peat bogs, with one
Scottish MEP campaigning for a moratorium on wind developments on peatlands saying
that "Damaging the peat causes the release of more carbon dioxide than wind farms
save".
Offshore locations use no land and avoid known shipping channels.

Impact on wildlife
Environmental assessments are routinely carried out for wind farm proposals, and
potential impacts on the local environment (eg plants, animals, soils) are evaluated.
Turbine locations and operations are often modified as part of the approval process to
avoid or minimise impacts on threatened species and their habitats. Any unavoidable
impacts can be offset with conservation improvements of similar ecosystems which are
unaffected by the proposal.
Projects such as the Black Law Wind Farm have received wide recognition for its
contribution to environmental objectives, including praise from the Royal Society for the
Protection of Birds, who said that the scheme was not only improving the landscape in a
derelict opencast mining site, but also benefiting a range of wildlife in the area, with an
extensive habitat management projects covering over 14 square kilometres.

Birds
Danger to birds is often the main complaint against the installation of a wind turbine.
However, a study estimates that wind farms are responsible for 0.3 to 0.4 fatalities per
gigawatt-hour (GWh) of electricity while fossil-fueled power stations are responsible for
about 5.2 fatalities per GWh. The author's study therefore claims that fossil fuel based
electricity causes about 10 times more fatalities than wind farm based electricity,
primarily due to habitat alteration from pollution and mountain-top removal. The number
of birds killed by wind turbines is also negligible when compared to the number that die

as a result of other human activities such as traffic, hunting, electric power transmission
and high-rise buildings, and the introduction of feral and roaming domestic cats,. For
example in Denmark, where wind turbines generate 9% of electricity, wind turbines kill
about 30,000 birds per year - while cars kill 1 million birds per year; thus cars kill 33
times as many birds. Moreover, in the UK, where there are several hundred turbines,
about one bird is killed per turbine per year; 10 million per year are killed by cars alone.
In the United States, turbines kill 70,000 birds per year, compared to 80,000 killed by
aircraft, 57 million killed by cars, 97.5 million killed by collisions with plate glass, and
hundreds of millions killed by cats. An article in Nature stated that each wind turbine
kills an average of 4.27 birds per year.
In the UK, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) concluded that "The
available evidence suggests that appropriately positioned wind farms do not pose a
significant hazard for birds." It notes that climate change poses a much more significant
threat to wildlife, and therefore supports wind farms and other forms of renewable
energy. In 2009, however, the RSPB warned that "numbers of several breeding birds of
high conservation concern are reduced close to wind turbines," probably because "birds
may use areas close to the turbines less often than would be expected, potentially
reducing the carrying capacity of an area." The National Audubon Society in the U.S.
takes a similar position, broadly supporting wind power to help mitigate global warming,
while cautioning against siting wind farms in areas especially important to birds and
other affected wildlife.
The Peascal Wind Power Project in Texas is located in the middle of a major bird
migration route, and the wind farm uses avian radar originally developed for NASA and
the United States Air Force to detect birds as far as four miles away. If the system
determines that the birds are in danger of running into the rotating blades, it shuts down
the turbines. The system automatically restarts the turbines when the birds have passed.
At the Altamont Pass Wind Farm in California, a settlement has been reached between
the Audubon Society, Californians for Renewable Energy and NextEra Energy Resources
(who operate some 5,000 turbines in the area). Nearly half of the smaller turbines will be
replaced by newer, more bird-friendly models. The project is expected to be complete by
2015 and includes $2.5 million for raptor habitat restoration.
Some paths of bird migration, particularly for birds that fly by night, are unknown. A
study suggests that migrating birds may avoid the large turbines, at least in the low-wind
non-twilight conditions studied. A Danish 2005 (Biology Letters 2005:336) study showed
that radio tagged migrating birds traveled around offshore wind farms, with less than 1%
of migrating birds passing an offshore wind farm in Rnde, Denmark, got close to
collision, though the site was studied only during low-wind non-twilight conditions.

Bats

Savi's Pipistrelle killed by "Ravna 1 wind farm" on island Pag, Croatia

Bats may be injured by direct impact with turbine blades, towers, or transmission lines.
Recent research shows that bats may also be killed when suddenly passing through a low
air pressure region surrounding the turbine blade tips.
The numbers of bats killed by existing onshore and near-shore facilities has troubled bat
enthusiasts. A study in 2004 estimated that over 2200 bats were killed by 63 onshore
turbines in just six weeks at two sites in the eastern U.S. This study suggests some
onshore and near-shore sites may be particularly hazardous to local bat populations and
more research is needed. Migratory bat species appear to be particularly at risk,
especially during key movement periods (spring and more importantly in fall). Lasiurines
such as the hoary bat, red bat, and the silver-haired bat appear to be most vulnerable at

North American sites. Almost nothing is known about current populations of these
species and the impact on bat numbers as a result of mortality at windpower locations. It
has been suggested that bats are attracted to these structures in search of roosts. Offshore
wind sites 10 km (6 mi) or more from shore do not interact with bat populations.
Scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey have already conducted research using stable
isotope analysis to track migration among terrestrial mammals. USGS scientists are
currently applying this technique in their efforts to figure out the geographic origins of
bats killed by wind turbines.
In April 2009 the Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative released initial study results
showing a 73% drop in bat fatalities when wind farm operations are stopped during low
wind conditions, when bats are most active.
Bats avoid radar transmitters, and placing microwave transmitters on wind turbine towers
may reduce the number of bat collisions.

Climate change
One study reports simulations that show detectable changes in global climate for very
high wind farm usage, on the order of 10% of the world's land area. However, wind
power has a negligible effect on global-mean surface temperature, and it would deliver
"enormous global benefits by reducing emissions of CO2 and air pollutants".
There may be micro-climate change due to turbulence in the wakes of the spinning
turbine rotors. But more efficient rotors may significantly reduce this.

Impacts on people
Safety
Operation of any utility-scale energy conversion system presents safety hazards. Wind
turbines do not consume fuel or produce pollution during normal operation, but still have
hazards associated with their construction and operation.
There have been at least 40 fatalities due to construction, operation, and maintenance of
wind turbines, including both workers and members of the public, and other injuries and
deaths attributed to the wind power life cycle. Most worker deaths involve falls or
becoming caught in machinery while performing maintenance inside turbine housings.
Blade failures and falling ice have also accounted for a number of deaths and injuries.
Deaths to members of the public include a parachutist colliding with a turbine and small
aircraft crashing into support structures. Other public fatalities have been blamed on
collisions with transport vehicles and motorists distracted by the sight and shadow flicker
of wind turbines along highways.

If a turbine's brake fails, the turbine can spin freely until it disintegrates or catches fire.
Often turbine fires cannot be extinguished because of the height, and are left to burn
themselves out. In the process, they generate toxic fumes and can scatter flaming debris
over a wide area, starting secondary fires below. Several turbine-ignited fires have burned
hundreds of acres of vegetation each, and one burned 800 square kilometres (200,000
acres) of Australian National Park.
Electronic controllers and safety sub-systems monitor many different aspects of the
turbine, generator, tower, and environment to determine if the turbine is operating in a
safe manner within prescribed limits. These systems can temporarily shut down the
turbine due to high wind, electrical load imbalance, vibration, and other problems.
Recurring or significant problems cause a system lockout and notify an engineer for
inspection and repair. In addition, most systems include multiple passive safety systems
that stop operation even if the electronic controller fails.
In his book Wind Energy Comes of Age, Paul Gipe estimated that the mortality rate for
wind power from 19801994 was 0.4 deaths per terawatt-hour. Paul Gipe's estimate as
of end 2000 was 0.15 deaths per TWh, a decline attributed to greater total cumulative
generation.

Aesthetics
Newer wind farms have larger, more widely spaced turbines, and have a less cluttered
appearance than older installations. Wind farms are often built on land that has already
been impacted by land clearing and they coexist easily with other land uses (eg grazing,
crops). They also have a smaller footprint than other forms of energy generation such as
coal and gas plants. However, wind farms may be close to scenic or otherwise
undeveloped areas, and aesthetic issues are important for onshore and near-shore
locations.
Aesthetic issues are subjective and some people find wind farms pleasant and optimistic,
or symbols of energy independence and local prosperity. While some tourism officials
predict wind farms will damage tourism, some wind farms have themselves become
tourist attractions, with several having visitor centers at ground level or even
observation decks atop turbine towers.
Residents near turbines may complain of "shadow flicker" on nearby residences caused
by rotating turbine blades, when the sun passes behind the turbine. However, this can
easily be avoided by locating the wind farm to avoid unacceptable shadow flicker, or by
turning the turbine off for the few minutes of the day when the sun is at the angle that
causes flicker.
Wind towers require aircraft warning lights, which may create light pollution. Complaints
about these lights have caused the FAA to consider allowing fewer lights per turbine in
certain areas.

Noise
Modern wind turbines produce significantly less noise than older designs. Turbine
designers work to minimise noise, as noise reflects lost energy and output. Noise levels at
nearby residences may be managed through the siting of turbines, the approvals process
for wind farms, and operational management of the wind farm.
Renewable UK, a wind energy trade organization, has said that the noise measured 350m
from a wind farm is less than that from normal road traffic or in an office. However,
some studies by physicians and acoustic engineers have reported problems from wind
turbine noise, including sleep deprivation, headaches, dizziness, anxiety, and vertigo.
Nina Pierpont, a New York pediatrician, has said that noise can be an important
disadvantage of wind turbines, especially when building the wind turbines very close to
urban environments. The controversy around Pierpont's work centers around her claims
made in a self-published, non-peer-reviewed book that ultra-low frequency sounds affect
human health. She asserts that wind turbines affect the mood of people and may cause
physiological problems such as insomnia, headaches, tinnitus, vertigo and nausea.
In December 2006, a Texas jury denied a noise pollution suit against FPL Energy, after
the company demonstrated that noise readings were not excessive. The highest reading
was 44 decibels, which was characterized as about the same level as a 10 mile/hour
(16 km/h) wind. The nearest residence among the plaintiffs was 1,700 feet from one of
the turbines. More recent lawsuits have been brought in Missouri , Pennsylvania, and
Maine.
In the Canadian Province of Ontario, the Ministry of the Environment created noise
guidelines to limit wind turbine noise levels 30 metres away from a dwelling or campsite
to 40 db(A). These regulations also set a minimum distance of 550 metres (1,804 feet)
for a group of up to five relatively quiet [102 dB(A)] turbines within a 3-kilometre (1.86mile) radius, rising to 1,500 metres (4,921 feet) for a group of 11 to 25 noisier (106-107
db(A)) turbines. Larger facilities and noisier turbines would require a noise study.
In a 2009 report about "Rural Wind Farms", a Standing Committe of the Parliament of
New South Wales, Australia, recommended a minimum setback of two kilometres
between wind turbines and neighbouring houses (which can be waived by the affected
neighbour) as a precautionary approach. In July 2010, Australia's National Health and
Medical Research Council reported that "there is no published scientific evidence to
support adverse effects of wind turbines on health".
A 2008 guest editorial in Environmental Health Perspectives' published by the National
Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the U.S. National Institutes of Health, stated:
"Even seemingly clean sources of energy can have implications on human health. Wind
energy will undoubtedly create noise, which increases stress, which in turn increases the
risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer."

The Japanese Environment Ministry will begin a "major study into the influence of
sounds of wind turbines on people's health" in April 2010, because "people living near
wind power facilities are increasingly complaining of health problems". They plan a fouryear examination of all 1,517 wind turbines in the country.
A 2007 report by the U.S. National Research Council noted that noise produced by wind
turbines is generally not a major concern for humans beyond a half-mile or so. However,
low-frequency vibration and its effects on humans are not well understood and sensitivity
to such vibration resulting from wind-turbine noise is highly variable among humans.
There are opposing views on this subject, and more research needs to be done on the
effects of low-frequency noise on humans.
Research by Stefan Oerlemans for the University of Twente and the Dutch National
Aerospace Laboratory suggests that noise from existing wind turbines may be reducible
by up to half by adding "saw teeth" to the trailing edges of the blades, although research
is not complete.

2009 review
A 2009 "expert panel review", described as being the most comprehensive to date, delved
into the possible adverse health effects of those living close to wind turbines. Their report
findings concluded that wind turbines do not directly make people ill.
The 85-page study was sponsored by the Canadian Wind Energy Association and
American Wind Energy Association. The academic and medical experts who conducted
the study stated that they reached their conclusions independent of their sponsors. "We
were not told to find anything," said panel expert David Colby, a public health officer in
Chatham-Kent and a Professor of Medicine at the University of Western Ontario. "It was
completely open ended."
The study did allow that some people could be stressed out by the swishing sounds wind
turbines produce. "A small minority of those exposed report annoyance and stress
associated with noise perception..." [however] "Annoyance is not a disease." The study
group pointed out that similar irritations are produced by local and highway vehicles, as
well as from industrial operations and aircraft.
The wind-industry report found, amongst other things, that:

"Wind Turbine Syndrome" symptoms are the same as those seen in the general
population due to stresses of daily life. They include headaches, insomnia,
anxiety, dizziness, etc...
low frequency and very low-frequency "infrasound" produced by wind turbines
are the same as those produced by vehicular traffic and home appliances, even by
the beating of people's hearts. Such 'infrasounds' are not special and convey no
risk factors;

Colby stated that evidence of harm was so minuscule that the wind associations
were unable to initiate other independent collinear studies by government
agencies. It was not surprising that their requests met with complete blanks on the
need to examine the issues further;
one study member noted: "You can't control the amount of cars going by and
wind turbine noise is generally quieter than highway noise";
the power of suggestion, as conveyed by news media coverage of perceived
'wind-turbine sickness', might have triggered "anticipatory fear" in those close to
turbine installations.

The study panel members included: Robert Dobie, a doctor and clinical professor at the
University of Texas, Geoff Leventhall, a noise vibration and acoustics expert in the
United Kingdom, Bo Sondergaard, with Danish Electronics Light and Acoustics, Michael
Seilo, a professor of audiology at Western Washington University, and Robert
McCunney, a biological engineering scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. McCunney contested claims that infrasounds from wind turbines could
create vibrations causing ill health: "It doesn't really have much credence, at least based
on the literature out there" he stated.

Offshore
Many offshore wind farms are being built in UK waters. In January 2009, a
comprehensive government environmental study of coastal waters in the United Kingdom
concluded that there is scope for between 5,000 and 7,000 offshore wind turbines to be
installed without an adverse impact on the marine environment. The study which forms
part of the Department of Energy and Climate Change's Offshore Energy Strategic
Environmental Assessment is based on more than a year's research. It included analysis
of seabed geology, as well as surveys of sea birds and marine mammals.