ALTERNATIVE ENERGY WIND ENERGY Historical.

No-one knows when wind power was first exploited, though the first references to wind mills appear around a thousand years ago in Asia. For centuries, wind mills were familiar parts of the European landscape and important power sources, mainly used in the grinding of corn and the pumping of water. Only the rise of heat engines in the industrial revolution led to their decline. In America small wind turbines were used extensively for electricity generation at isolated homesteads up until the major rural electrification programs in the 1930's.

Current Position. Over the past several decades in Europe and the U.S. wind power has enjoyed a resurgence, as a contributor to national electricity supplies. Over more than a decade the installed capacity of wind power plant in Europe has been increasing at something like 40% per year. If this does not sound impressive, notice that this rate of growth has seen the installed capacity increase by a factor of twenty over ten years. Although overall the contribution is still a very small fraction of the total electricity generating capacity, the installed capacity of wind power is still increasing geometrically and there are ambitious plans for further expansion. In developing countries small wind turbines are still significant sources of power, used extensively for water pumping, and the potential for larger scale exploitation is being developed.

Types of Wind Turbine Systems. Wind turbines come in a range of sizes. Rotor diameters and power ratings range from about one meter and 50 W up to about 110 meter and 4.5 MW. Many production designs have rotor diameters of around 80 meters and power ratings of about 2 MW. There are no very strong scale effects but very small systems tend to have lower overall efficiencies, and very large machines benefit from the increase in wind speed at greater heights above ground. The wind turbines are either connected to the national electricity grid, or to some form of autonomous power supply system.

Large Scale: Grid-Connected Systems. Grid-connected machines are often grouped together where conditions are favourable (on a suitable hill or ridge for example) to form Wind Farms. Grouping machines together saves money compared to having to arrange a large number of grid connections from individual machines. Typical installed capacities range from about 20 MW to about 150MW. Because of the variable nature of the wind, the power from a wind turbine or wind farm varies dramatically with time. With small amounts of wind power on a large power grid the variations don't matter much; the grid acts as a large buffer. As the proportion of wind power on a system increases though the variations of output become more troublesome, and measures have to be taken to deal with them. Power variations begin to cause difficulties if wind power accounts for more

than about ten percent of the national electricity supply. There is a related problem that arises because wind farms tend to be in relatively remote areas where the grid is weak; the UK grid for example was designed to distribute power from centralised power stations rather than from a large number of widely spread sources. In the UK there is presently (in 2009) about 4 GW installed capacity of wind power on the grid; in the region of 5% of the total installed capacity, although the electricity actually generated from wind is a smaller fraction of the total amount generated . This will be explained later. It has been suggested that within the European Union, 20% of electricity could be provided by wind energy by 2020. Some countries have already invested heavily in wind energy; Germany for instance had some years ago an installed capacity of about 15,000 MW and obtained about 7% of its electricity from wind. In some sectors of the electricity supply network it has been demonstrated that more than 30% of demand can be supplied from wind energy. One of the important requirements is good wind forecasting so that the mix of wind power and other plant can be adjusted to match the available wind power. Medium Scale: Wind Diesel Systems. Some isolated communities around the UK and elsewhere have historically depended on Diesel generators for their electricity supply, typically with a few tens of kW to a few MW installed capacity. Fuel costs are high. Recently substantial contributions from wind power have been installed on some island grids. The variations of wind power have to be dealt with by controlling the Diesel output or by load management to keep supply and demand roughly equal. Some form of energy storage can be arranged to smooth out the wind power variations. Some typical installations are: Cape Clear, 72kW Diesel + 60kW Wind + 100kWh battery store. Foula, 24kW Diesel + 60kW Wind + 19kW hydro + 3000kWh pumped storage. On the island of Foula wind and Diesel power are integrated with a pumped storage hydroelectric system. When there is excess wind power available water is pumped up to a reservoir, to be used to generate power when there is a shortfall of wind power. Even a few tens of seconds worth of energy storage makes a big improvement, since some of the most troublesome power variations on a wind Diesel grid occur over these time scales, causing frequent starts and stops of the diesel plant. Various short-term energy storage means have been tried such as batteries, flywheels and hydraulic accumulators. Wind Diesel systems have been built on smaller scales, with installed capacities of a few kW to a few tens of kW.

Small Scale: Wind-Battery, Micro-Generation,Water Pumping. Until quite recently small systems were only used for isolated (off-grid) systems. At the level of a few kW capacity down to sub-kW capacity many domestic wind turbine-battery systems have been built. The battery store smooths out both short-term and long-term power variations. Excess wind power can be used for background heating.

In a new development over the past few years however, the idea of small scale wind power for individual households in towns and cities has become attractive to some extent. Now re-badged as Micro-Generation, these systems have been encouraged firstly by the artificially high value of renewable electricity and secondly by the availability of smart power controllers to keep account of generation. A large part of the attraction is presumably the desire of individuals to contribute in some way to reducing carbon footprints and so on, although there could be a cost benefit in principle. In practice however many micro-generation systems were installed in inappropriate locations and with quite unrealistic expectations of performance. The wind conditions in urban areas are generally not well suited to wind turbine operation. Worldwide, hundreds of thousands of water-pumping windmills are used, often for extraction of water from boreholes. The variation in wind power does not matter much in this application.

Technical Aspects. A typical modern wind turbine for power generation has a rotor consisting of two or more (usually three) slender blades. The Swept Area of the rotor is the area of the circle described by the blade tips. The basic formula for wind power production is:
P = Cp 1 d V3 A 2

where P is the available power in Watts, Cp the Power Coefficient (related to the rotor efficiency), d the air density in kg/m3, V the wind speed in m/s, and A the swept area of the rotor in m2. The value of Cp is usually in the range 35%-45%; the maximum theoretical Cp is 60%. Obviously the power depends very strongly on the wind speed. This makes siting of the wind turbines very important. As a guide to the scale of the enterprise let us assume a Cp of 40%, a wind speed of 7 m/s, typical of good western sites, and an air density of 1.2 kg/m3. The power available per square meter of rotor swept area would be: 0.4 x 0.5 x 1.2 x 73 = 82 W / m2. Another important formula gives the thrust on the rotor which is important for the mechanical design of the wind turbine components.
T = Ct 1 dV2 A 2

where T is the thrust in Newtons. Ct is an empirical constant, usually about 0.9 in operation. Because of this square law relating thrust to wind speed the wind turbines must be designed to withstand large forces during gales and storms. However, when the turbine is not rotating the rotor thrust is proportional to the area of the blades alone, not the swept area, so the forces are very much reduced. This is why wind turbines are stopped in very high winds. The wind speed at which this is done is often referred to as the Cut-Out wind speed, Vco. The shutdown mechanisms often use air brakes on the rotor blades to destroy the power capture, followed by mechanical braking of the rotor shaft. It is very entertaining to be at the top of the tower when a machine shuts down because the braking operation bends the tower a bit, which then goes

through some graceful oscillations. You want to be holding on to something when you push the big red button. At the other end of the spectrum of wind speeds, it is not worth allowing the machines to start and synchronise with the grid below a certain speed called the Cut-In speed, Vci. Wind turbines are also described in terms of their Rated Power (Pr) and Rated Windspeed (Vr), and these are the most important parameters. The Rated Power is essentially the design power of the electrical generator, which cannot be exceeded for any great length of time without risking overheating. The Rated Windspeed is simply the wind speed at which the Rated Power is developed. Once Vr and Pr are defined, this defines the physical size of the rotor, since the power equation becomes: 1 Pr = Cp d Vr 3 A 2 and this defines the swept area A. In wind speeds above Vci but below Vr the power generated will vary with the windspeed, but all the available wind power can be used. In wind speeds above Vr but below Vco, the power capture of the rotor must be limited, or regulated, to Pr by some means. Some machines use air brakes, or pitch control of all or part of the blades, or a passive system known as stall regulation which exploits the inherent aerodynamic characteristics of certain blade designs. The characteristics of the wind turbine can be illustrated neatly with a graph of power output versus wind speed, known as the Power Curve. The one shown below is a somewhat idealised curve; the regulation above Vr is not usually so exact.

Typical Power Curve Pr

power

0 0 Vci Vr wind speed Vco

Because of the variation in windspeed it is not a simple matter to calculate the average power that can be expected over a long period of time. The probability distribution of wind speed (wind spectrum) must be established, the power at those speeds predicted from the Power Curve, and an overall expected energy calculated. This procedure allows a fairly accurate prediction. Wind spectra are often quite similar though, and experience has shown that certain rules of thumb can be used to make rough estimates. Cutting a long story short, wind turbines in the UK are often selected and sited so that the average wind speed is about 60% of the Rated

Windspeed, resulting in average power generation levels about 30% of Rated Power. Such an installation would be described as having a Capacity Factor, CF, of 30%. Broadly, the capacity factor represents the average output divided by the installed capacity. Capacity Factors are actually often based on energy captured over a period of time rather than power. In energy terms the capacity factor is the ratio of energy capture in a period (often one year) divided by the energy that would have been obtained by the system operating at its full capacity over the same period of time. A CF of 30% is the figure generally assumed by the UK industry for purposes of rough output estimation. The above specification would be desirable, but might not be achievable on some sites. On a less favourable site one might have an average windspeed say 50% of the turbine Rated Windspeed which would result in a CF of about 25%. So far as wind turbine selection is concerned, one has to choose from the range of commercial machines available, most of which have rated wind speeds of 12 m/s or even higher; a few machines rated at lower wind speeds are available. A common measure of overall performance is the Annual Energy Capture, expressed in units of Watt-hours per year, (Wh/y) or multiples (GWh/y or TWh/y), because electricity generation and use is measured in terms of energy (your electricity meter reads in units of kWh). The equivalent average power of the plant is found by dividing the Annual Energy Capture by the number of hours in a year, 8760. In the wind power industry (or the UK at least) wind farm energy production is also described in terms of "Annual House Equivalent" which is the amount of energy a standard house is supposed to use in one year, 4700 kWh. (Corresponding to an average power consumption of 536W incidentally.) Notice that a typical wind farm of say 100MW installed capacity will thus generate about the same amount of electrical energy as would a conventional plant of 30MW running continuously. This is not quite a fair comparison because conventional plant does not operate at capacity factors of 100%, due to down time caused by scheduled maintenance or breakdown, although a modern base-load plant might have a CF of 90% or higher. In any event, a typical wind turbine or wind farm produces much less energy than one would first think based on the installed capacity, and opponents of wind power like to make a big deal about that. It does not however represent any malfunction or intrinsic inefficiency. In Europe the wind regimes are generally less favourable than in the UK and wind farm Capacity Factors tend to be lower. An outline specification for a wind power plant can be written if the average power requirement or annual energy requirement is known, together with the average windspeed. Pr = Pavg / 0.3, Vr = Vavg / 0.6, or Pr = Pavg / 0.25 for Vr = Vavg / 0.5 .

A machine with ratings similar to the desired values would then be selected. A= Pr / Cp dVr3, rotor diameter D = sqrt(4A/). Wind turbine R & D and installation is currently encouraged by subsidies. It is expected that further developments and economies of quantity production will extend the range of economically viable sites. The main problems associated with wind turbines have been those of perceived noise and visual

impact, leading to difficulty in obtaining planning consent. A fairly vociferous anti-wind power lobby exists which has managed to generate some controversy over the technology. A typical 50 MW wind farm would consist of say 20 machines a few hundred meters apart, of 80 meter diameter, mounted on 100 meter high towers. The visual impact of thousands of Megawatts worth of wind turbines will clearly be significant. There have been problems with noise from wind turbines, particularly some early designs. Some technical measures are possible to alleviate the noise emission but a certain amount is unavoidable. Both of these issues are however minimised or avoided by siting wind farms offshore in relatively shallow coastal waters, and this is expected to be the mainstay of future European expansion. Other environmental issues have to be addressed, including impact on bird populations, electromagnetic interference, impact of site works and so on.

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY WIND DIESEL POWER SYSTEMS Worldwide there is a very considerable amount of electricity generated by Diesel plant, generally in units of the scale of some tens to hundreds of kilowatts, in areas isolated from national electricity grids. Two considerations have lead to considerable interest in supplementing such systems with Wind Power. * * The cost of Diesel generation is relatively high, mainly due to fuel costs. The scale of the plant is similar to proven commercially available Wind Turbine Generators.

There is no great difficulty in adding an off-the shelf WTG to an existing Diesel grid. However, it turns out to be quite difficult to make effective use of wind power to reduce Diesel fuel costs without going to some considerable trouble. The net power generation on the network must at all times closely match the power demand, otherwise troublesome variations of voltage and frequency will occur. Because the power from the wind fluctuates dramatically over timescales from seconds to years, the load must be maintained by some other means when there is a shortfall of wind power. Long periods of calm pose no new problems; the Diesels operate as before. If short term deficits in wind power are supplemented by Diesel generation however, some operational problems emerge. If on the other hand there is a surplus of wind power, there is no great technical problem; excess power can be simply dumped by diverting power to a resistive load (called the Dump Load). Sometimes the dumped power can actually be made use of (perhaps as background heating for example) and so is not wasted. In the simplest approach one simply keeps the Diesels running all the time, controlling the power to suit the available wind power and demand. The trouble is that the fuel burn may hardly be reduced significantly because the part-load efficiency of the Diesel generating sets is poor, and indeed zero at idle. This reduces the economic attractiveness of such schemes. If the Diesels are stopped when the WTG can meet the load and restarted when necessary greater fuel savings could be made, but here the catch is that frequent stopping and starting is not good for the Diesel plant. The best that can be done is to use only a fraction of the average available wind power, so that the wind power is nearly always much greater than the load. This can reduce the frequency of Diesel stop-starts to a tolerable level, but results in very poor utilisation of the available wind power. This damages the economics because a much larger wind turbine is needed to supply a given load for most of the time..

The solution to the problem is to add short-term energy storage to the system so that the wind power fluctuations are smoothed out. A storage capacity of even a few tens of seconds worth of operation goes a long way toward reducing the frequency of Diesel stop-starts to an acceptable level even at high levels of utilisation of wind power. Moreover, when the energy store is depleted and the Diesels are needed, they can be run continuously at their design power until the energy store is full again. The Diesels therefore are nearly always either running at maximum efficiency (least fuel consumption per kW) or not at all (no fuel consumption). Most practical

energy stores would provide much longer periods of backup. The downside of this solution is of course the significant increase of system complexity necessary to achieve and manage the energy storage. Most operational Wind-Diesel systems use Lead-Acid batteries as the storage medium. The batteries have to be sized to deal with the power levels involved which results in energy capacities, and hence costs of purchase and maintenance, much greater than necessary on capacity grounds. Other demonstration Wind-Diesel systems have successfully used flywheels and hydraulic energy stores.