Wind Power from Wind Turbine

Environmental Department
FMIPA UNS
2021
 Wind Turbines (that work)

HAWT: Horizontal Axis VAWT: Vertical Axis

Wind Turbines (flights of fancy)
 Wind Power Factoids
 Potential: 10X to 40X total US electrical power
 .01X in 2009
 Cost of wind: $.02 – $.06/kWh
 Cost of coal $.02 – $.03 (other fossils are more)
 Cost of solar $.25/kWh – Photon Consulting
 “may reach $.10 by 2010” Photon Consulting
 State with largest existing wind generation
 Texas (7.9 MW) – Greatest capacity: Dakotas
 Wind farm construction is semi recession proof
 Duke Energy to build wind farm in Wyoming – Reuters Sept 1, 2009
 Government accelerating R&D, keeping tax credits

 Grid requires upgrade to support scalable wind

 Top Wind Power Producers
in TWh for Q2 2008
Country Wind TWh Total TWh % Wind
Germany 40 585 7%
USA 35 4,180 < 1%
Spain 29 304 10%
India 15 727 2%
Denmark 9 45 20%
Sustained Wind-Energy Density

From: National Renewable Energy Laboratory, public domain, 2009

Yet Another Wind Map
US Wind Farms in 2006
 Inside a Wind Turbine

GE Wind Energy's 3.6

From Wikipedia megawatt wind turbine
 Power Calculation
 Wind kinetic energy: E k  1
2 mair v 2

 Wind power: Pwind  1

2  air r 2 v 3

 Electrical power: Pgenerated  Cb N g N t Pwind

 Cb  .35 (<.593 “Betz limit”)
 Max value of P dE
dt

 14  air r 2 v13 1         
v2
v1
v2 2
v1
v2 3
v1

 Ng  .75 generator efficiency

 Nt  .95 transmission efficiency
 Wind v & E match Weibull Dist.
Weibull Distribution: 
W ( , k )   
k

x ( k 1)
exp    
  x k

Data from Lee Ranch, Colorado

wind farm

Red = Weibull distribution of wind speed over time

Blue = Wind energy (P = dE/dt)
 Optimization Opportunities
 Site selection
 Altitude, wind strength, constancy, grid access, …
 Turbine selection
 Design (HAWTs vs VAWTs), vendor, size, quantity,
 Turbine Height: “7th root law”
vh
vg  7 h
g  Ph 
7
3 h
g Pg  
h 0.43
g Pg
 Greater precision for local conditions
 Local topography (hills, ridges, …)
 Turbulence caused by other turbines
 Prevailing wind strengths, direction, variance
 Ground stability (support massive turbines)
 Grid upgrades: extensions, surge capacity, …
 Non-power constraints/preferences
 Environmental (birds, aesthetics, power lines, …)
 Cause radar clutter (e.g. near airports, air bases)
World’s Largest Wind Turbine
(7+Megawatts, 400+ feet tall)
 What’s wrong with this picture?

• Proximity of turbines
• Orientation w.r.t.
prevaling winds
• Ignoring local
topography
•…

Near Palm Springs, CA

 Economic Optimization
 $1M-3M/MW capacity
 $3M-20M/turbine
 Questions
 Economy of scale?
 NPV & longevity?
 Interest rate?
 Operational costs?
 Price of Electricity
 8% improvement in 25B invested = $2B
 Price of storage vs upgrade of grid transmission vs both
Penultimate Optimization Challenge
 Objective Function
 Construction: cost, time, risk, capacity, …
 Grid: access & upgrade cost,
 Operation: cost/year, longevity,
 Risks: price/year of electricity, demand, reliability, …
 Constraints
 Grid: Ave & surge capacity, max power storage, …
 Physical: area, height, topography, atmospherics, …
 Financial: capital raising, timing, NPV discounts, …
 Regulatory: environmental, permits, safety, …
 Supply chain: availability & timing of turbines, …
 Energy Storage
 Compressed-air storage
 Surprisingly viable
 Efficiency ~50%
 Pumped hydroelectric
 Cheap & scalable
 Efficiency < 50%
 Advanced battery
 Cost prohibitive
 Flywheel arrays (unviable)
 Superconducting capacitors (missing technology)
 Compressed-Air Storage System
Wind resource:
k = 3, vavg = 9.6 m/s, 1.5 Slope ~ 1.7
Pwind = 550 W/m2 (Class 5)
hA = 5 hrs. 1
CF = 81%
PC = 0.85 PT PG = 0.50 PT 0.5 CF = 76%
CF = 72%
(1700 MW) (1000 MW) CF = 68%
0 0.5 1 1.5
Comp Gen

hS = 10 hrs.
Wind farm: (at PC)
PWF = 2 PT (4000 MW) Eo/Ei = 1.30
Spacing = 50 D2
vrated = 1.4 vavg Underground storage Transmission:
PT = 2000 MW
 Optimization To Date
 Turbine blade design
 Huge literature
 Generators
 Already near optimal
 Wind farm layout
 Mostly offshore
 Integer programming
 Topography
 Multi-site new
 + Transmission challenge

 + Storage
 Need Wind Data
 Prevalent Direction, Speed, seasonality
 Measurement tower position & duration
optimization too…
 US Investment in Wind Power
 2008 Investment: $16.4B (private + public)
 Total since 1980: $45+B
 Estimate for 2009-2018: $300B-$700B
 Optimization can have a huge impact

San Goronio Pass, CA

 Trusted Third Party
 Wind power industry now generates studies for
public utilities
 Every industry provider (Vestas, GE, Siemens, …)
shows their wind-generators are the best  no true
comparison, no site/context sensitivity.
 No global optimization across designs, etc.
 Modeling, optimization, assessment is complex,
requires expertise
 Room for a non-profit expertise pool and models
 Track evolving technologies
THANK YOU!