Wind Energy Basics

What is Electricity? Electricity is energy transported by the motion of electrons **We do not make electricity, we CONVERT other energy sources into electrical energy** Conversion is the name of the game KidWind Project | www.kidwind.org

Be conscious of your energy choices! Electricity! More efficient light bulbs are great, but what is the BEST way to conserve electricity and reduce our consumption of fossil fuels??? TURN IT OFF!!! Be conscious of your energy choices! What about this 25 Watt CFL light bulb, which produces the same amount of light? How much would it cost to run this 100 Watt bulb for a full day (24 hrs)? 100 Watts x 24 hours = 2400 Watt Hours (2400 Watt Hours = 2.4 Kilowatt Hours) 25 Watts x 24 hours = 600 Watt Hours (600 Watt Hours = 0.6 Kilowatt Hours) 2.4 kWh x $0.08/kWh = $0.19 0.6 kWh x $0.08/kWh = $0.05

Where do we get our electricity? KidWind Project | www.kidwind.org 4

What is a Fossil Fuel???

What is “Renewable Energy?”

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Types of Electricity Generating Windmills Small (10 kW) Homes Farms Remote Applications (e.g. water pumping, telecom sites, icemaking) Intermediate (10-250 kW) Village Power Hybrid Systems Distributed Power Large (250 kW - 2+MW) Central Station Wind Farms Distributed Power KidWind Project | www.kidwind.org

Parts of a Wind Turbine

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Wind Turbine Perspective Workers Blade 112’ long Nacelle 56 tons Tower 3 sections KidWind Project | www.kidwind.org

Large Wind Turbines 450’ base to blade Each blade 112’ Span greater than 747 163+ tons total Foundation 20+ feet deep Rated at 1.5 – 5 megawatt Supply at least 350 homes

KidWind Project | www.kidwind.org Yawing – Facing the Wind Active Yaw (all medium & large turbines produced today, & some small turbines from Europe) Anemometer on nacelle tells controller which way to point rotor into the wind Yaw drive turns gears to point rotor into wind Passive Yaw (Most small turbines) Wind forces alone direct rotor Tail vanes Downwind turbines KidWind Project | www.kidwind.org

KidWind Project | www.kidwind.org Note where wind energy projects are located…. CA, TX are the leaders…IA, MN and WA are the next batch…. Projects tend to be where the wind is located….not a whole lot in the SE KidWind Project | www.kidwind.org

Notice where the winds are the strongest…. MN, ND, SD called the Saudia Arabia of windpower…if we saturated these state with wind turbine we could generate at most of energy used in the US…Why have we not done this? Tranmission is one major problem need to match load with generation…how would we get all the power out of there? Why don’t we put lots of wind farms in the rockies? Lots of wind but very hard to get at 60 meter long blade to the continental divide….logisitics of these large machines is very challenging!

Importance of Wind Speed No other factor is more important to the amount of power available in the wind than the speed of the wind Power is a cubic function of wind speed V X V X V 20% increase in wind speed means 73% more power Doubling wind speed means 8 times more power KidWind Project | www.kidwind.org

Carnage!

Jobs in the Wind Industry

Construction

Public Relations/Organizing Support KidWind Project | www.kidwind.org

Operations/Maintenance

KidWind Project | www.kidwind.org Maintenance KidWind Project | www.kidwind.org

Engineering/Design

Environmental Impact Assessment

Questions???