WIND POWER: THE ULTIMATE SOURCE OF RENEWABLE

ENERGY

CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................... 3

1.1 Wind Power Turbines ........................................................................................................... 3

1.2 Classification of Wind Power Turbines ................................................................................ 4

1.3 Onshore Versus Offshore Wind Turbines............................................................................. 4

2. CURRENT GLOBAL WIND POWER MARKET................................................................. 5

3. ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF WIND POWER AND FUTURE SCOPE .............................. 6

3.1 Future of wind energy in Europe .......................................................................................... 7

4. ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF WIND POWER PLANTS ........................................... 8

4.1 Reduction in Co2 Emissions.................................................................................................. 8

4.2 Impacts on flora and fauna .................................................................................................... 8

5. TECHNICAL CHALLENGES IN WIND POWER INSTALLATIONS ............................... 9

6. INVESTIGATIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT ......................................................................... 9

6.1 Digitalization – Future of Wind Power Technology........................................................... 10

7. SCOPE OF IMPLEMENTATION ........................................................................................ 10

8. CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................................... 12

REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................. 12
 LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Components of Wind Turbine ......................................................................................... 3
Figure 2: Configurations of Wind Turbines.................................................................................... 4
Figure 3: Onshore and offshore wind turbines ............................................................................... 5
Figure 4: Future economic analysis of Europe Wind Energy ;2030 scenario ................................ 7
Figure 5: Impact of wind turbines on birds and fish species .......................................................... 8
Figure 6: Innovations in onshore wind turbines ........................................................................... 11

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: International Comparison of Wind Power Capacity ......................................................... 5
Table 2: Capital cost comparison of onshore and offshore wind Turbines .................................... 6
1. INTRODUCTION

The continuous rise in worldwide power needs, high electricity rates and green house emissions
with respect to fossil fuels-based conventional energy sources leads to the demand for the
development of sustainable energy(Höök and Tang 2013). Renewable energy resources including
wind, solar, and geothermal are of high interests at all levels, globally and nationally, due to their
consequential role in the sustainable development of societies and environmental impact. Among
the mention resources wind energy has worldwide deployment in terms of capacity of power
generation with china, United states and Europe as major contributors(Murdock, Gibb et al. 2020).

1.1 Wind Power Turbines

The conversion of wind power to mechanical energy can be done by using wind power turbines at
highly windy locations, the produced energy in the form of mechanical power is then changed into
electrical power with the help of different components as shown in figure 1(Madvar, Ahmadi et
al. 2019).

Figure 1: Components of Wind Turbine

Anemometer is basically used to measure the speed of wind(Madvar, Ahmadi et al. 2019). Blades
are rotated by flow of air to give power generation. Brake provides emergency stop of shafts. Gear
box is used for speed rising and it has direct link with the generator which as a result produce
alternative current. Rotor contains blades as well as hub pitch is used to stop working of blades in
case of power variation. Tower maintains the optimum height require for wind turbine excellent
performance and they also facilitates the access to wind turbine for maintenance. Wind vane
change the direction of blades along with flow of wind the direction of wind is checked by the help
of yaw(Madvar, Ahmadi et al. 2019).

1.2 Classification of Wind Power Turbines

Basically two kinds (horizontal and vertical axis) wind power turbines are there .(Watson, Rebello
et al. 2018). Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines are vertically designed major rotor shaft results in
excellent efficiency so currently these are in commercial use while the research is in progress for
defining the pros of VAWT(Emeksiz and Cetin 2019).

Figure 2: Configurations of Wind Turbines

1.3 Onshore Versus Offshore Wind Turbines

Onshore wind farms can be present at land while offshores are installed mainly within large water
bodies. The main difference between onshore and offshore wind farms is capacity of energy
generation. Because of high and uniform speed of wind offshore wind turbines have more
electricity generation potential at a steady rate as compare onshore counterparts (Kaldellis and
Kapsali 2013).

Figure 3: Onshore and offshore wind turbines

2. CURRENT GLOBAL WIND POWER MARKET

At present, rising trend of wind power projection and its worldwide application has been noticed.
Table 1 represents the global comparison of installed capacity of wind power (MW).

Table 1: International Comparison of Wind Power Capacity

Country Annual Capacity (MW) Cumulative Capacity

China 26155 236402
United States 9137 105591
United Kingdom 2383 23340
India 2377 37506
Spain 2319 25850
Germany 2189 61406
France 1336 16645
Rest of World 10639 104641
Source: Global Wind Energy Council,2019 Report
According to GWEC the worldwide cumulative installed wind energy generation capacity is
reaches to 817 GW in the year 2021.
3. ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF WIND POWER AND FUTURE SCOPE

Basically 3 kind of costs are linked with the wind power: firstly, capital cost, operational and
maintenance cost (OMC), and thirdly levelized energy cost. The initial cost of installation is covered as
capital cost, the maintenance and labor cost as O& M, while the levelized cost includes overall life cycle
investment depiction. The evolutionary cost reductions can also be considered which results from
technological improvement(Arshad and O'Kelly 2016).

Table 2: Capital cost comparison of onshore and offshore wind Turbines(IRENA 2015)

Item Offshore Turbine Onshore Turbine

Cost/kW Cost/kW
Capital cost of wind turbine installation 3300$ to 5000$ 1700$ to 2450$
Development, transport, and installation of wind turbine 30% to 50% 65%–84%
(Percentage of Total capital cost)
Cost of grid connections (Percentage of Total capital cost) 15% to 30% 9% to 14%
Infrastructure Land Design and Engineering cost 15% to 25% 4% to 16%
(Percentage of Total capital cost)
Miscellaneous cost for data collection monitoring and grant 8% to 30% 4% to 10%
of permits (Percentage of Total capital cost)

The overall operational cost of wind power projects annually ranges between one to two percent of the
actual cost of wind power turbine, or estimated 0.01 dollar per kilowatt hour (Enevoldsen and Xydis
2019). The operational cost of offshore projects higher as compare to onshore, the cost lies in the range
of 0.027 to 0.054 US$/kWh.

Levelized cost of onshore turbines lies between dollar per kilowatt hour annually. It is analyzed that
for UK, levelized cost for onshore turbines is 0.05 to 0.16 US$/kWh.
3.1 Future of wind energy in Europe
The economical scope of wind power turbines in Europe is represented by figure 4 (Darwish and
Al-Dabbagh 2020) describes the in 2030 323Gigawatt will be the installed capacity and it can
generate 569,000 i.e., a large no, of jobs together with 239,000 million pounds investments. The
CO2 emissions are avoided roundly 382Mt while the reduction in fossil fuel emissions will be
13,200 million pounds and the estimated 24–29% of electricity production (Darwish and Al-

Dabbagh 2020).

Figure 4: Future economic analysis of Europe Wind Energy ;2030 scenario

4. ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF WIND POWER PLANTS

4.1 Reduction in Co2 Emissions

The ecological influence of wind energy projects is relatively low in comparison with convention
fossil fuels-based energy sources. According to the IPCC, the CO2 gas emissions of wind power
projects have an average value of 11 gram carbon dioxide eq/KWh for onshore turbines along with
12 gram carbon dioxide eq/KWh for offshore.(Pachauri, Allen et al. 2014).Wind turbines have
very low contribution towards global warming per unit of energy generation as compared to other
low carbon sources of power(Guezuraga, Zauner et al. 2012).

4.2 Impacts on flora and fauna

As every technology has both positive and negative impacts, wind farms can cause potential
impacts on habitat, wildlife, birds and fish species, landscapes, sustainable land use (including
protected areas), and the aquatic environment as shown in figure below. The problematic
environmental concerns wind power plants installations are very low as compare to fossil fuel
based energy sources, but still they should be considered and mitigated.

Figure 5: Impact of wind turbines on birds and fish species

The strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is the formal method adopted to analyze the adverse
impacts on the environment after that appropriate mitigation measures are proposed based upon
the location of project installment(Association 2012).
5. TECHNICAL CHALLENGES IN WIND POWER INSTALLATIONS

Wind Power Sector is growing rapidly but there are still some challenges in terms of policy,
economics, and lack of technological knowledge. Enlisted below are some of the main challenges
faced by wind industry(Colmenar-Santos, Perera-Perez et al. 2016, Blaabjerg and Ma 2017,
Stathopoulos, Alrawashdeh et al. 2018).

➢ Although the wind energy has low cost in the past few decades, but they should be able to
overcome other economical electricity source, and some places may not be windy enough
to be economical.
➢ Onshore wind farms are mostly installed at remote windy area. Transmission lines
currently present could not bear the load so new transmission lines should be proposed to
enhance the generation of energy.
➢ Land suitable for installation of wind power projects should compete with other profitable
uses for the land as compare to electricity generation.
➢ Turbines might cause problems like noise as well as aesthetic problems.
➢ Birds can kill when they fly through spinning blades of wind turbine, research is growing
to design the viable solutions to overcome the effects of wind projects on these endangered
species.

6. INVESTIGATIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT

Modern wind turbines are more economical, more reliable and have more capacity of power
production then the turbines in 80’s and 90’s now a day’s turbines are relatively larger with up to
12 MW power generation capacity(Firestone and Kirk 2019). As the world is developing the
research in area of increase the life of wind projects in order to low their operational cost is
considered.

The main areas of innovation are listed below.

➢ Long and lighter in weight blades of wind turbines rotor(Tanuma 2017).

➢ Curved tips blades designing in order to get benefit of all wind speeds(Rauleder, van der
Wall et al. 2018).
 ➢ Blades to bear the stresses of wind at high-altitude and heighted towers(Verma, Vedvik et
al. 2019).
➢ Performance optimization of wind power control systems(Zamzoum, El Mourabit et al.
2018).
➢ More reliable designs of gear boxes(Altherr, Dörig et al. 2018).

6.1 Digitalization – Future of Wind Power Technology

Currently the hot topic of research in wind energy is digitization of wind power industry as
described below.

➢ Now a day’s wind turbines are moving towards digitization as the bandwidth is upgraded
from 4G to 5G, offshore wind turbines can able to communicate with geographically far
asset owners faster(Imran, Khan et al. 2019).
➢ Currently ‘the cloud’ is a very safe software to store larger amounts of analytics, the wind
power industry can now store large amount of data as compare to previous decades this
can facilitates to investigate the turbine’s health(Canizo, Onieva et al. 2017).
➢ The use of Artificial intelligence for data handling is another way towards digitization this
leads to economical systems as the human resource will be reduced(Zhao, Wang et al.
2019)
➢ The use of drone is another route towards technological advancement, pictures can
captured remotely without the need of pilot, in order to stich these photos cloud imaging
can be used, maintenance issues can also be analyzed at initial stage helping technicians to
solve problem before it becomes severe(Moolan-Feroze, Karachalios et al. 2019).
➢ Digitization is also a way forward toward the smart grids’ development(Tuballa and
Abundo 2016).

7. SCOPE OF IMPLEMENTATION

Currently the main issue in the implementation of wind power plants is the capital and transmission
cost specially in developing countries. When in future technology will be improved it ultimately
results in reduction of cost of wind power turbines. The main innovation towards which the world
is moving is increase in the diameter of rotor as well as height of hubs to facilitate high production
of power at areas with low speeds of wind. Approximately 110m of Rotor diameter was introduced
back in 2018 to give power of 2.6MW. Siemens-Gamesa a Spanish German company introduced
the model of its upcoming wind rotor with diameter of 170m with capacity of 5.8MW to be
introduced in 2022-25.

Figure 6: Innovations in onshore wind turbines

Source: (IRENA, 2019; Wind Power Monthly, 2019, 2018)

Various research are ongoing to improve the aerodynamic dimensions and materials of the blades
of wind turbines in order to decrease the effect of erosion results in decrease of operational and
maintenance cost which will enhance the scope of future implementation of wind power.(Aparicio,
González et al. 2016).

The wind turbine installation scope will be enhanced in future dur too the development of
optimized and reliable power invertors. In this field the German firm Semikron is working to
achieve the targets to apply the technology of wind power stations in humid situations(Aparicio,
González et al. 2016).

Artificial intelligence and the digital revolution also positively affect the future scope of the wind
turbines, through digitization monitoring can done to analyze the maintenance issues and their
proactive management cut down the operational and maintenance costs of wind turbines(Qi,
Mauricio et al. 2020).
Different recyclable materials are now introducing in the market for the development of light and
long-lasting blades of wind turbines which can increase the revenue in terms of
performance(Jensen and Skelton 2018).

8. CONCLUSION

The wind power is one of the best economical solutions to control greenhouse emissions
specifically CO2 and global warming. Currently the worldwide offshore wind industry is growing
very rapidly in regions of united states of America Europe and Asia as one of the most sustainable
form of energy. In future offshore farms can provide maximum global electricity production as the
research in development of design and methods for wind turbines structures and replacement of
materials in their fabrication can results in the economical projects with enhancement in lifetime
of offshore wind power turbines. The revolution in the field of network tороlоgies and роwer
appliances can enhance the reliability and energy storage and power control potential.

There are minor environmental concerns from wind power plants installations in terms of flora
and fauna, but they can be mitigated. The strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is the formal
method that can be adopted to analyze the adverse impacts on the environment after that
appropriate mitigation measures are proposed based upon the location of project installment. Now
more research studies are required on the effects of wind energy farms on the environmental
degradation. Wind energy utilization and associated infrastructure production initiatives ought to
be evaluated for the socioeconomical, environmental and ecological impacts. Appropriate
measures should be taken in order to minimize the environmental problems because of the
infrastructure development of wind projects. Builders planners, and government officials should
accumulate and communicate relative information to public that the projects are evolved in a
manner that avoids, reduce, and mitigates environmental influences.

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