Guided Tour on Wind Energy
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Guided Tour on Wind Energy Welcome to your own guided tour on wind energy. Each one of the tours is a self-contained unit, so you may take the tours in any order. We suggest, however, that after the introduction you start with the first section on Wind Energy Resources, since it makes it much easier to understand the other sections. NEW Printer friendly version Download the Guided Tour and the Reference Manual (3.2 mb) as an Adobe Acrobat pdf-file. Please respect that we have exclusive copyright on all of this web site. You may quote us, giving proper attribution to the Danish Wind Industry Association web site www.windpower.org, but it is illegal to reuse any picture, plot, graphics or programming on any other web site or in any commercial or non commercial medium, printed, electronic or otherwise. 1. Introduction 2. Wind Energy Resources 1. Where does Wind Energy Come From? 2. The Coriolis Force 3. Global Winds 4. Geostrophic Wind 5. Local Winds: Sea Breezes 6. Local Winds: Mountain Winds 7. The Energy in the Wind: Air Density and Rotor Area 8. Wind Turbines Deflect the Wind 9. The Power of the Wind: Cube of Wind Speed 10. Wind Speed Measurement: Anemometers 11. Wind Speed Measurement in Practice 12. The Wind Rose 13. Wind Rose Plotter Programme (requires Netscape 4, or IE 4) 14. Roughness and Wind Shear 15. Wind Speed Calculator (requires Netscape 3, 4, or IE 4) 16. Wind Shear and Escarpments 17. The Roughness Rose 18. Wind Speed Variability 19. Turbulence 20. Wind Obstacles 21. Wind Shade 22. Guide to the Wind Shade Calculator 23. Wind Shade Calculator (requires Netscape 3, 4, or IE 4) 24. Wake Effect 25. Park Effect 26. Speed Up Effects: Tunnel Effect 27. Speed Up Effects: Hill Effect 28. Selecting a Wind Turbine Site 29. Offshore Wind Conditions 30. Wind Map of Western Europe 31. Wind Map of Denmark 3. Computing Wind Turbine Energy Output 1. Describing Wind Variations: Weibull Distribution 2. Weibull Distribution Plotter Programme (requires Netscape 3, 4, or IE 4) 3. The Average Bottle Fallacy 4. Mean (Average) Power of the Wind 5. Betz' Law 6. Power Density Function 7. Power Curve of a Wind Turbine 8. The Power Coefficient 9. Guide to the Wind Turbine Power Calculator 10. Wind Turbine Power Calculator (requires Netscape 3, 4, or IE 4) 11. Annual Energy Output from a Wind Turbine 4. How Does a Wind Turbine Work? 1. Wind Turbine Components 2. Aerodynamics of Wind Turbines - Lift 3. Aerodynamics of Wind Turbines - Stall and Drag 4. Adding Wind Speeds and Directions 5. Rotor Aerodynamics 6. Rotor Blades 7. Power Control of Wind Turbines 8. The Wind Turbine Yaw Mechanism 9. Wind Turbine Towers 10. Wind Turbine Generators 11. Synchronous Generators 12. Changing Generator Rotational Speed 13. Asynchronous (Induction) Generators 14. Changing the Number of Generator Poles 15. Variable Slip Generators for Wind Turbines 16. Indirect Grid Connection of Wind Turbines 17. Gearboxes for Wind Turbines 18. The Electronic Wind Turbine Controller 19. Controlling Power Quality from Wind Turbines 20. Size of Wind Turbines 21. Wind Turbine Safety 22. Wind Turbine Occupational Safety 5. Designing Wind Turbines 1. Basic Load Considerations 2. Wind Turbines: Horizontal or Vertical Axis Machines? 3. Wind Turbines: Upwind or Downwind? 4. Wind Turbines: How Many Blades? 5. Optimising Wind Turbines 6. Designing for Low Mechanical Noise from Wind Turbines 7. Designing for Low Aerodynamic Noise from Wind Turbines 6. Manufacturing and Installing Wind Turbines 1. Manufacturing Wind Turbine Nacelles (QTVR panorama requires QuickTime plugin) 2. Testing Wind Turbine Rotor Blades 3. Manufacturing Wind Turbine Towers 4. Welding Turbine Towers 5. Installing and Assembling Wind Turbine Towers 7. Research and Development in Wind Energy 1. Research and Development in Wind Energy 2. Offshore Wind Power Research 3. Offshore Wind Turbine Foundations 4. Offshore Foundations: Traditional Concrete 5. Offshore Foundations: Gravitation + Steel 6. Offshore Foundations: Mono Pile 7. Offshore Foundations: Tripod 8. Wind Turbines in the Electrical Grid 1. Wind Energy Variations 2. Seasonal Variation in Wind Energy 3. Wind Turbines and Power Quality Issues 4. Grid Connection of Offshore Wind Parks 9. Wind Energy and the Environment 1. Wind Turbines in the Landscape 2. Sound from Wind Turbines 3. Measuring and Calculating Sound Levels 4. Sound Map Calculator (requires Netscape 3, 4, or IE 4) 5. Wind Turbine Sound Calculator (requires Netscape 3, 4, or IE 4) 6. Energy Payback Period for Wind Turbines 7. Birds and Wind Turbines 8. Birds and Offshore Wind Turbines 9. Shadow Casting from Wind Turbines 10. Calculating Shadows from Wind Turbines 11. Refining Shadow Calculations for Wind Turbines 12. Shadow Variations from Wind Turbines 13. Guide to the Wind Turbine Shadow Calculator 14. Wind Turbine Shadow Calculator (requires Netscape 3, 4, or IE 4) 10. Wind Energy Economics 1. What does a Wind Turbine Cost? 2. Installation Costs for Wind Turbines 3. Operation and Maintenance Costs 4. Income from Wind Turbines 5. Wind Energy and Electrical Tariffs 6. Basic Economics of Investment 7. Wind Energy Economics 8. Pitfalls in Wind Energy Cost Analysis NEW 9. Guide to the Wind Energy Economics Calculator 10. Wind Energy Economics Calculator (requires Netscape 3, 4, or IE 4) 11. The Economics of Offshore Wind Energy 12. Wind Energy and Employment 11. Modern Wind Turbine History 1. A Wind Energy pioneer: Charles F. Brush NEW 2. The Wind Energy Pioneer: Poul la Cour 3. The Wind Energy Pioneers - 1940-1950 4. The Wind Energy Pioneers - The Gedser Wind Turbine 5. Wind Turbines From the 1980s 6. The California Wind Rush 7. Modern Wind Turbines 8. Offshore Wind Turbines 9. Megawatt-Sized Wind Turbines 10. Multi-Megawatt Wind Turbines We keep adding pages to this guided tour. We'll e-mail you when they are ready, if you register with our Mailing List. | Home | FAQs | Quiz | Manufacturers | Publications | History | News | Mailing List | Find | Links | About Us | Reference Manual | E-Mail | Map&Guide | Download | © Copyright 2002 Soren Krohn. All rights reserved. Updated 17 April 2002 http://www.windpower.org/tour/index.htm Introduction to the Guided Tours on Wind Energy If You Want to Know a Lot These guided tours are written for people who want to know a lot about wind energy, short of becoming wind engineers. They also answer most of the questions which students ask us - without going into difficult details of math and physics. Even so, we also explore some of the challenging frontiers of wind energy technology. We are mostly concerned with commercial, large, grid connected turbines 100 kW and up. If You Want to Know a Little Take a look at the Frequently Asked Questions about wind energy and the Wind Energy Pictures. If You just Want a Wind Turbine You do not have to be an expert on thermodynamics to start a car engine and drive a car. With a wind turbine it is even simpler: You don't have to buy fuel. It's there for free. If you want to know about the practical issues, like where do you place it, and what does it cost, then look at the following pages: Frequently Asked Questions Selecting a Wind Turbine Site Wind Energy Economics Wind Energy Pictures Manufacturers Offshore Tour If you already know a lot about wind energy, you may wish to get acquainted with the new territory of offshore wind energy. In that case, follow the signposts: to visit these eleven pages: Offshore Wind Conditions Offshore Wind Power Research Wind Turbine Offshore Foundations Offshore Foundations: Traditional Concrete Offshore Foundations: Gravitation + Steel Offshore Foundations: Mono Pile Offshore Foundations: Tripod Grid Connection of Offshore Wind Parks The Economics of Offshore Wind Energy Birds and Offshore Wind Turbines Offshore Wind Turbine Pictures You will return to this point after the Offshore Tour. Other Tour Resources After the tour, you might like to test your skills answering the quiz on wind energy. In case you want to see unit definitions and other hard information, you may find it in the Reference Manual. In the Manual's Glossary page you may find Danish, German, Spanish, and French translations of specialist terms used in this guided tour, and references to where they are explained. Please note that this web site also exists in Danish and German. You may use the links below or on the top to navigate forward or back in the guided tour. You will return to the table of contents at the end of each one of the tours. | Home | FAQs | Quiz | Manufacturers | Articles | Publications | History | News | Mailing List | Find | Links | About Us | Reference Manual | E-Mail | Map&Guide | Animations may be stopped anytime using the stop button on your browser. These pages are designed for Netscape 4 or IE 4 © Copyright 2000 Soren Krohn. All rights reserved. Updated 29 August 2000 http://www.windpower.org/tour/intro/index.htm Where does Wind Energy come From? All renewable energy (except tidal and geothermal power), and even the energy in fossil fuels, ultimately comes from the sun. The sun radiates 174,423,000,000,000 kilowatt hours of energy to the earth per hour. In other words, the earth receives 1.74 x 1017 watts of power.1) About 1 to 2 per cent of the energy coming from the sun is converted into wind energy. That is about 50 to 100 times more than the energy converted into biomass by all plants on earth.2) Temperature Differences Drive Air Circulation The regions around equator, at 0° latitude are heated more by the sun than the rest of the globe. These hot areas are indicated in the warm colours, red, orange and yellow in this infrared picture of sea surface temperatures (taken from a NASA satellite, NOAA-7 in July 1984).