Lecture 20

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Lecture 20: Alternative Energy

Resources The Wind Power
The Wind Farm
A wind farm or wind park is a group
of wind turbines in the same location used
to produce energy. A large wind farm may
consist of 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
can also be located offshore.
Many of the largest operational onshore
wind farms are located in the United States
and China. For example, the Gansu Wind
Fig. 20.1: The Wind Farm
Farm in China has a capacity of over
5,000 MW of power with a goal of 20,000 MW by 2020. The Alta Wind Energy
Centre in California, United States is the largest onshore wind farm outside of China, with a
capacity of 1,020 MW. As of April 2013, the 1,000 MW London Array in the UK is the largest
offshore wind farm in the world, followed by the 504 MW Greater Gabbard wind farm in the UK.
There are many large wind farms under construction and these include Sinus Holding Wind
Farm (700 MW), Lincs Wind Farm (270 MW), Lower Snake River Wind Project (343 MW),

Design of Wind Farm

As a general rule, economic wind generators require wind speed of 16 km/h (10 mph) 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 screened on the 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 in order to finance the project. Local winds are often monitored for a
year or more, and detailed wind maps constructed before wind generators are installed.
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%.

Lecture 20

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Wind Turbine
A wind turbine is a device that converts kinetic energy from
the wind into electrical power. A wind turbine used for
charging batteries may be referred to as a wind charger.
Wind turbines can rotate about either a horizontal or a
vertical axis, the former being both older and more common.
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.
Fig. 20.2: Components of a horizontal-axis wind
turbine
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.
Vertical-axis wind turbines (or VAWTs) have the
main rotor shaft arranged vertically. One advantage
of this arrangement is that the turbine does not need
to be pointed into the wind to be effective, which is
an advantage on a site where the wind direction is
highly variable, for example when the turbine is
integrated into a building. Also, the generator and
gearbox can be placed near the ground, using a
direct drive from the rotor assembly to the groundbased gearbox, improving accessibility for
maintenance.
Advantages of Wind Energy

Energy source is free

No carbon emission

Fig. 20.3: The three primary types of wind

turbine

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Lecture 20

No pollution
No water use

Wind Energy for Pakistan

Wind speed 57 m/s persists in coastal
regions of Sindh and Balochistan
provinces and in a number of KPK
valleys. According to a survey,
Pakistan possesses more than 20,000
MW of economically viable wind
power potential. But by the end of year
2003, not a single wind energy
conversion system with a generating
capacity above 500 W had been
Fig. 20.4: Pakistan Wind Power
installed in the country. There were
only a small number of micro-plants (300500 W) for generating electricity and more than 100
wind power installations in use for pumping water in the coastal regions of Balochistan and Sindh
provinces. On commercial grid connected electricity generation programme, the Government of
Pakistan decided to install 100 MW wind power form at Gharo-Keti Bendar through AEDB
during the year 2005 but the programme is still in its beginning of implementation. 100 MW
Kenetech wind power project in Balochistan province and 150 MW Omega Zond wind farm in
Sindh province which were being planned to implement in 2000s with co-operation of two
American investors could not be implemented. Similarly projects initiated in 2001 under GEF
Operational ProgrammeOP6 with co-financing from UNDP and the Nordic trust for commercial
scale exploitation of wind energy for power generation also ended with no outcome. Recently in
April 2009, AEDB inaugurated 4 MW grid interactive wind power station at Gharo, Sindh which
is the biggest installation so far in the country. AEDB installed 40 wind turbines in Karachi with
total generation capacity of less than 10 MW and also installed micro-turbines of 500 W in
various universities of Balochistan for R&D purposes. Presently AEDB is working on wind
mapping project. PCRET has installed 135 units of micro wind turbine in Sindh and Balochistan
province while electrifying 1431 houses with wind power generation of more than 151 kW. Gul
Muhammad village in Sindh was the first village in Pakistan electrified through wind energy by
PCRET by installing 26 micro-units of 500 W each in this village.

Wind Power
(

Kinetic energy (energy of motion) =

1
mass) (velocity)2 / 2 = m v 2
2

Wind energy density

2

(mass density of air) (wind speed) / 2

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Lecture 20

Power = rate at which energy hits the windmill =

(wind speed) (area of windmill)

(wind energy density)

Fig. 20.5: Wind Speed vs Power

Power proportional to (wind speed)3 for twice

the wind speed get eight times the power
2

-2

Power (W) / m = 5.4 x 10 (speed) with speed in miles per hour

Capacity vs. Output

Not always at rated wind speed

Power proportional to (speed)3
Output less than capacity
Below cut off speed windmill doesnt
function
Wind speed more often below average than
above

Windmill Size Evolution

Exponential Growth

Fig. 20.6: Increase in Wind Speed and Power

with Tower height

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Lecture 20

Percentage of Electrical Power from Wind (2009)

Denmark: 21%
Spain: 16%
Portugal: 18%
Ireland: 14%
Germany: 9%
US: 2%

Solar Vs Wind

high maintenance (many parts)

high temperature (thousands of degrees)
takes up lot of land
only works in sunny (desert) area

low maintenance (few parts)

takes up little land
works wherever it is windy