A popular form of energy is wind electricity and this is created mainly by the use of wind turbines. Wind electricity has to date produced around 1.5% of electricity globally and is rapidly growing. Over the last three years the use of wind electricity has doubled and many countries worldwide have achieved high levels of wind electricity such as countries like Denmark which achieved 19% and Spain and Portugal achieved around 11% and Ireland and Germany achieved 7%. Globally there are eight countries that are using wind electricity commercially. There are now wind farms which are directly connected to wind electricity transmission networks and small amounts of this source is being passed on to isolated facilities. When there is a surplus of wind electricity which has been produced by small domestic wind turbines, utility companies are purchasing it back. This is also an alternative to fossil fuels as wind electricity is in abundance and does not emit greenhouse gases. There are concerns however which has been voiced by the environmentalists due to the impact wind turbines have such as noise and the diminishing number of bats and birds that fly into these turbines and die. Wind electricity is not dispatchable as the output must be taken when it is available.
Wind energy has been used for thousands of years. It has been used as natural ventilation in buildings and used to propel ships and boats and the use of wind electricity has been used for irrigation pumping as far back as the seventh century. Farmers have used this system for many years and so had the railways for the steam trains. Later windmills were fitted with batteries and provided wind electricity to farms that were situated in desert areas. Wind electricity is commercially viable as it can produce an estimated seventy two TW in comparison to the worldwide power consumption which is around fifteen TW. It is impossible to define the amount of wind electricity a turbine will produce as this will depend on the strength of the winds at any given time. When there are high speed winds then one will get short bursts of wind electricity which means that wind electricity does not have a consistent output. In spite of this fact wind electricity is still regarded as one of the major fuel savers as opposed to a capacity saver.
Follow us:
Written by Alex Rolim.
