Wind Energy Project

Wind Energy Project

Wind Energy Project

Introduction

Today's interest in wind as a possible source of energy for producing electricity dates from the oil crisis that occurred in the mid-seventies. This interest has been continuing even in more recent years, in spite of the current availability of plentiful and cheap resources of fossil fuels and nuclear energy. The basic reason for that can be found in the widespread concern about possible damage to the environment, not to mention the fear of possible shortage of fuels due to increasing exploitation of their finite reserves in the coming decades.

Indeed, industrialized countries at present produce about 65% of their electricity from fossil fuels. According to current estimates, if developing countries should have a substantial economic growth in the next few decades, as is hoped for, they would produce 50% of the world's electric energy by 2030. In this case, if the whole world went on having the same 65% recourse to fossil fuels as is done now in industrialized countries, a dramatic rise in greenhouse and polluting emissions could certainly be expected, along with a most probable, heavy rise in prices of fossil fuels. Hence comes the interest in exploring any new, renewable energy sources that can somehow replace, even in a supplementary role, the fuels so far in use [1].

Wind as an energy source

The wind energy potential on the Earth is huge and enough, in principle, to meet all the world's electricity needs. Virtually every country has sites with average wind speeds of more than 5 m/s measured at a height of 10 m, which are sufficient for development [1]. In practice, however, the actually exploitable potential is considerably lower, as it depends strongly on quite a number of geographic, orographic, environmental, technical and financial factors. Moreover, for the evaluations of producibility of specific plants and the relative technical-economic considerations, wind data having real statistical significance are required, i.e. data acquired over long periods of time. This aim can only be achieved by carrying out systematic recordings of wind speed and direction at potential wind plant areas, for a period of one or more years.

Wind surveys and installations have so far concerned mostly on-land sites. However, a very interesting wind potential seems to exist also in off-shore, shallow water locations, where there is the advantage of better wind conditions and less environmental restrictions, although the disadvantage of more difficult access and higher installation and maintenance costs must be taken into account.

It has also to be recognized that the low energy concentration of wind, and its highly variable and random availability over time, no doubt clash with the needs of electricity producers. Particularly, the low energy concentration means that, where a wind plant of significant power is to be built, a large number of wind turbines have to be used, which must in turn be large in size in relation to their installed generating capacity. These setbacks do not, however, mean that wind cannot be put to a good use as a ...