Wind Power for the Valley?
The hissing sound roared as winds approached 45 miles per hour, not uncommon for this coastal sub tropic region early Spring. All was quiet down below in the control room as the sealed hatch closed in behind us. Dim, blue light revealed only the gleaming instrument lights on the consoles. Strangely, only one operator appeared and seemed to be shuffling around to each before settling in on the center console. He turned and smiled at us just before he slowly revved up a lever. The consoles blinked radically as he disengaged the hydraulic brake, but still no sound, like that which you would expected to hear from other turbine generations. Only the faint hum from the ground above could be heard and then the refined, distant whistle of a spinning shaft leading to the turbines. Above, on the smooth plain, still accelerating, were the huge and slender wind turbines. So many and so Large, one would think they could propel the earth rotation.
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Is this a feasible scenario for the Valley at some future time? Why not? In Spain nine percent and in Denmark 19% of electricity is generated by wind power. Global wind power has increased 500% worldwide. The principal is certainly simple enough. Wind has been used to use crush grain and pump well water for ages. Wind power to generate electricity as well, is simple in principal.
Basically wind pressure on the slanted blades of a wind turbine force it to rotate. This rotation energy is transferred to a generator that produces electricity. From there it can be stored in batteries or spread throughout an electrical grid for public use. But it does get a bit more complex.
Although it has been determined that an optimum wind turbine design can capture up to 59% of the wind energy that passes through it’s radius, the formulas that project energy efficiency for this method, given current technology, are not so promising. Many studies showed that most of the wind generated electricity was produced over only 15% of the operation
period, leaving the rest quite unproductive. Low wind just doesn’t get much moving I presume. High wind on the other hand, gets quite productive just as a car seems to require less power to maintain a high speed. Therefore, the large variations of output production from wind studies are not outperforming other, common sources of electrical power such as, fuel-fired power plants that can generate electricity around the clock as long as coal is abundant.
Part of the problem for wind is that much of it’s power is not necessarily generated at the time one needs it. The Mother Nature effect. This unique characteristic of wind power requires
then, that its power must for the most part be stored in batteries. And for now, it’s the battery technology that is lacking. But one wonders if they ever considered the Valley for these studies since our wind situation is likely more consistent than other locations.
I am no scientist by the way. But it doesn’t take one to make some sense from the formula. I note that the largest single contributing factor in the efficiency formula for wind is wind velocity, since its value in the formula is taken to the 5th power, the highest buffing of all the factors in the calculation. And as we all know, our Valley wind velocity can dance the merengue for extended lengths of time so why not crank up the music?
It would appear from the evidence that I gather, that wind power on a large scale could prove very productive in the Valley but I presume there are not enough windy places elsewhere to make the production economic so far for institutional facilities. However, there is a growing movement for small scale operations that can be used at home. These systems, evolving since the late 1980’s are now one-fifth the cost and require very little maintenance. There are some tax incentives and you could, if you had enough wind and production gear, sell some back to the power grid.
Certainly some other factors will come into play in the near future, like unrenewability, global demands and environmental impact that will move us, in the Valley, more in the right direction
of clean, green wind power on a large scale. We may find that indeed, “the answer is blowing in the wind.”
Next month we will explore wind power further as we consider what’s available today on the small scale.
for more information contact the Global Wind Energy Council at www.gwec.net and the American Wind Energy Association at www.awea.org