Friday, July 10, 2009

Wind Turbine Electricity Primer For The Inqusitive

By Denzil De Vries

Wind is fast becoming a popular alternative to producing electricity. There are wind farms coming up everywhere in the world these days. This powerful resource needs to be used as much as possible by individuals and companies. Wind turbine electricity is efficient and cost effective.

The wind turbine electricity is created only by wind resources. Wind is really a type of solar power. Just like solar panels use the sun, turbines use the wind, both natural sources of power. Here is an explanation of how it all works; the sun heats surfaces at uneven rates, the hot air that is formed then rises up and this forces cooler air to rush in and fill the gap. The rushing of the wind is what helps to produce the electricity. A wind turbine has to be positioned in the right area in order to catch the wind.

Blades are one of the most important pieces of the equation. Today turbines use blades that are horizontal, and there are usually only three blades. The metal cannot handle more than that as it is too much stress. The blades are made of a lightweight sturdy plastic or fiberglass, they are concave, and somewhat off center for a better angle for catching the wind and spinning the blades efficiently.

The blades are attached to a dual rotor assembly, which then attaches to a magnet rotor through a pulley assembly, which is used on larger turbines or can be placed directly on the smaller turbines that are used for homes. This assembly is what makes the blades spin when wind hits the blades.

The magnet rotor does not turn anything. It spins around a magnetic alternator which generates a magnetic field. When the magnetic field passes over the wires of the alternator, an electrical charge is generated. The electrical charge that is created is moved into a regulator that changes the natural electricity into a usable DC power form.

Now you have had a crash course in how a wind turbine works, you can imagine the potential. As you see it is a bit more complicated than one might first realize. It is however quite simple at its core. Harnessing the wind for energy use has been around for a long time. In days past it was used to turn wheels for different types of uses such as running a saw at a saw mill.

These days it may sound more sophisticated, but the premise is basically the same. There is a bit more math involved and more sophisticated components used to make it capture the wind to make electricity. The turbines do not resemble the old windmills of the past, but they do work more efficiently

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