Surprisingly the first use of the wind machines was for grinding grains as early as 200 B.C in Persia. It was also introduced in the prosperous and powerful Roman Empire in 250 A.D. The year 1900 saw the maximum number of windmills being used in Denmark. Almost 2300 windmill generators were installed to provide the much needed mechanical load to pumps and gave a peak power of 33MW.
The Wind Industry has grown rapidly since the 1990's and is considered as one of the fastest growing sectors in the power generation industry. Some of the European countries have even installed wind turbines that have been in operation for almost 20 years now and this entire operation has been extremely successful as well. Using wind turbines to harness wind power to create energy have brought down the production costs and are viable option for the coal fired power stations.
Why Wind Generators should be used? Wind Generators can effectively help in creating mechanical energy, which can be used for multiple purposes including assisting in the generation of power and electricity. Some of the other uses include:
According to a study, the Germany has the largest potential wind resource in the entire Europe and hence wind is being regarded their most promising future source of renewable energy technologies. As of today the wind turbines in the UK are producing electricity that is being delivered to almost 380,000 households and reaching around 3 million people. A salient point of the use of wind energy is that it has reduced carbon dioxide emissions by almost 1.46 million tones per annum.
The question is how can wind be converted into energy? The answer is: by using a wind generator. The wind generator is basically a type of rotating device just like a huge fan that can convert the kinetic energy present in the wind into mechanical energy. When this mechanical energy is used by any type of machinery like a pump then such a machine is known as a windmill. If the same mechanical energy is converted to electricity then the machine that does the conversion is called a wind generator or a wind turbine. It is also known as a wind energy converter (WEC) or a wind power unit (WPU).
Wind is a powerful source of energy that has been harnessed for different uses for centuries. More and more scientists and researchers feel that wind can be used effectively as a renewable energy source and this can be done only when power within the moving air can be harnessed properly.
* It is a source of clean renewable energy that will not generate any greenhouse gases or emit carbon dioxide or even produce any dangerous wastes. * Wind power contributes significantly to the overall energy generation in any country. Denmark is one of the countries that gets almost 20% of its electricity from wind power * Wind turbines use an extremely robust technology that is designed for operation locally as well as remotely and requires only periodic maintenance. * Wind is a reliable and abundant source. UK being the windiest country in Europe has abundance of wind energy that can be used for making electricity. * Each unit of electricity produced by a wind turbine displaces one from every conventional power station. Wind turbines have been commissioned in the UK and have been extremely successful in prevent the emission of almost one and a three-quarter millions tonnes of carbon dioxide every year. * One of the salient points is that there is only a one time installation cost after which the electricity that is produced using a wind turbine will be free.
Wind generator blogs like this one: are gaining popularity these days. Have you ever wondered what the underlying wind generator technology of these domestic wind generators really is? Primarily there are two designs: horizontal-axis (HAWT) and vertical-axis (VAWT), the former is the most popular.
HAWT is the most popular wind generator technology in which the shaft is mounted parallel to the ground i.e. horizontally. And so a yaw-adjustment mechanism is typically used to line them up with the wind. The yaw system normally has electric motors and gear boxes that are responsible for moving the whole rotor left or right in small increments. The electronic controller of the turbine reads the wind vane and detects the direction of the wind. This helps to position the rotors accordingly to capture most of the wind. In this wind generator technology we use a tower to raise the turbine components to the best possible altitude and so most of the components are above the ground in the air.
VAWT is perhaps the rarer type of which is seldom used around the globe. In this wind generator design the shaft is mounted on the vertical axis unlike HAWT. They are already aligned in the direction of wind and so there is no need of any special adjustment mechanism. But a VAWT needs a boost from its electrical system to get started because it can`t get started by itself. It uses guy-wires for its support rather than a tower and so has a lower rotor. At lower elevation the wind is slow and so they are less efficient. HAWT have many advantages over VAWT which makes it favorite and popular among the two primary wind generator designs. Wind generator technology has not come to a halt but is still emerging. We hope to see many more designs which are more powerful and efficient than these existing ones.
Both Jacob Smithson & Robert D. Thomson are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Jacob Smithson has sinced written about articles on various topics from Environment, Fitness. Jacob Smithson is a well known promoter of trade lead information for trade sites like fuzing.com where you can uncover lots of trade leads for