Wind Power Plants

WIND FARMS

Wind farms should be considered if we are to cut back on the amount of carbon omissions we release into the atmosphere. Little did we know years ago that a simple Windmill would be able to generate power and conduct electricity to supply our homes. There it was staring us straight in the face for over a couple of centuries turning in our faces as it turned in the wind. The technology was already there and we are just discovering this now, ok we had to wait for the computer to be built to turn this energy into electricity, and what we have found out over the past twenty years was not even discovered yet, but what about now.

Now we see these wind farms that line our coasts and or hillsides. Wind farms are a great way of generating electricity but even the biggest of these wind farms that consists of 421 wind turbines spreading over a vast area in texas will supply nearly 1/4 of a million homes a year. The power companies do not own these farms but they are supplied by the private companies that set up these turbines. Setting up these wind farms takes great research in wind speed and wind direction, so you just cant set them up any where. The best place for these turbines are on hillsides, shore lines and in prevaling winds, so not every town can benifit from this source of energy.  

Image via Wikipedia

This graph shows the amount of hours the wind has to blow to turn this turbine to generate power to supply  electricity for 800 hours. The wind has to move these turbines for 500 hours to get 800 hours of power each. The down side of these are the wind might not be as strong as it was yesterday or the day before, but they have thought of this too, so the energy is stored until it over flows. When it overflows the private companies sell the access to the power companies and this makes sure that they have a reserve there if the strength of the wind varies from day to day.

There is another problem with these, finding the right location to set these turbines up, the wind does not always blow the same way every day. These massive structures are not build to move like a wind vein, if they were they would become unstable and would probably turn over and crash to the ground because of their sheer size. They have thought of this too, the propellers are designed to catch the wind even if it is blowing straight at the face of it, it just does not turn the turbine as fast as they would like it too this is another use of the overflow tank. The storage tanks will still meet demand but they have to locate them where the wind will blow constantly to fill the storage over flow tank back up.