HOW DO WIND TURBINES WORK?

#DidYouKnow a #wind turbine works like the opposite of a fan? Instead of using electricity to make wind, wind turbines use wind to make electricity. The wind turns the blades, which spin a shaft, which connects to a generator and makes electricity to power homes and businesses. Learn more about how wind turbines work ⇢

http://www.energy.gov/eere/wind/how-do-wind-turbines-



U.S. Department of Energy

Find Financing for Energy Efficient Upgrades

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80' Wind Turbine Install

We are pleased to announce that we are in the process of installing a Bergey Wind Power Turbine that will stand 80' tall at a farm in McHenry County.

Below are some Interesting facts about Wind Energy from the Wind Energy Foundation www.windenergyfoundation.org

Interesting Wind Energy Facts

#1. The United States currently has 61,110 MW of installed wind project capacity, comprising 5.7% of total U.S. installed electric generating capacity.

#2. Wind mills have been in use since 2000 B.C. and were first developed in China and Persia.

#3. Wind power is currently the fastest-growing source of electricity production in the world.

#4. Iowa and South Dakota generated more than 25% of their energy from wind during 2013.

#5. A single wind turbine can power 500 homes.

#6. In 2012, the Shepherds Flat wind project became the largest online wind project in the United States (845 megawatts), breaking the record previously held by the Roscoe Wind Farm (781.5 megawatts).

#7. In 2013, the roughly 168 million megawatt-hours generated by wind energy avoided 95.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO₂) — the equivalent of reducing power-sector CO₂ emissions by 4.4% or removing 16.9 million cars from the roads.

#8. There’s enough on-shore wind in America to power the country 10 times over.

#9. In 2013, 12 states accounted for 80% of U.S. wind-generated electricity: Texas, Iowa, California, Oklahoma, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Oregon, Colorado, Washington, North Dakota, and Wyoming. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration March Electric Power Monthly report.

#10. Most wind turbines (95%) are installed on private land.

#11. Modern wind turbines produce 15 times more electricity than the typical turbine did in 1990.

#12. At times, wind energy produces as much as 25% of the electricity on the Texas power grid.

#13. American wind power is a $10 billion a year industry.

#14. Unlike nearly every other form of energy, wind power uses virtually no water.

#15. By 2030, U.S. wind power will save nearly 30 trillion bottles of water.

#16. At times, wind power produces as much as 45% of the electricity in Spain.

#17. Wind energy became the number-one source of new U.S. electricity-generating capacity for the first time in 2012, providing some 42% of all new generating capacity. In fact, 2012 was a strong year for all renewables, as together they accounted for more than 55% of all new U.S. generating capacity.

#18. During 2013, California led the nation in new wind installations (with 269 megawatts), followed by Kansas, Michigan, Texas, and New York.

#19. 70% of all U.S. Congressional Districts are home to an operating wind project, a wind-related manufacturing facility, or both.

#20. As of May 2014, the United States is home to 46,000 operating wind turbines.

#21. Right now, 559 wind-related manufacturing facilities produce a product for the U.S. wind energy industry across 44 states.

#22. Both Nevada and Puerto Rico added their first utility-scale projects during 2012.

#23. In 2000, more than 60% of U.S. wind power capacity was installed in California, with 17 states hosting utility-scale wind turbines. Today, 39 states and Puerto Rico share 60 gigawatts of utility-scale wind project development.

#24. Wind is a credible source of new electricity generation in the United States. Wind power comprised 43% of all new U.S. electric capacity additions in 2012 and represented $25 billion in new investment. Wind power currently contributes more than 12% of total electricity generation in nine states (with three of these states above 20%), and provides more than 4% of total U.S. electricity supply. Source: 2012 Wind Technologies Market Report (PDF 3.4 MB)

#25. Wind energy prices have dropped since 2009 and now rival previous lows. Lower wind turbine prices and installed project costs, along with improved capacity factors, are enabling aggressive wind power pricing. After topping out at nearly $70/megawatt-hour in 2009, the average levelized long-term price from wind power sales agreements signed in 2011/2012 – many of which were for projects built in 2012 – fell to around $40/megawatt-hour nationwide.

INTERESTING INFORMATION

Wind farms can tame hurricanes: scientists

Huge offshore wind farms can protect vulnerable coastal cities against devastating cyclones like Katrina and Sandy by tempering winds and ocean surges before they reach land. researchers said.

Had such installations existed at the time, Hurricane Katrina which ravaged New Orleans in 2005, and Sandy, which smashed the coastlines of New York and New Jersey in 2012, would have been reduced to strong but not devastating winds.

The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, is the first to demonstrate that wind farms, deployed on a grand scale, can buffer violent hurricanes, the researchers said.

The team simulated the impact from farms of tens of thousands of turbines, placed miles offshore and along the coast of cyclone-vulnerable cities.

They found that turbine blades extracting energy from the wind on a very large scale can have a marked effect on the internal dynamics of a cyclone.  When wind turbines are present, they slow down the outer rotation winds of a hurricane.

This feeds back to decrease wave height, which reduces movement of air toward the centre of the hurricane, increasing the central pressure -- which in turn slows the winds of the entire hurricane and dissipates it faster.

In the case of Hurricane Katrina, sustained peak wind speed would have been reduced by as much as 98 miles per hour. Katrina's storm surge -- waves whipped up by the exceptional winds -- would have abated by up to 79 percent, said the study.

In the case of Tropical Storm Sandy, the model projected a drop of up to 87 mph in sustained peak wind speed and a 34-percent decrease in storm surge. When Sandy, at an earlier stage, was rated as a powerful Category 3 hurricane, it packed gusts of up to 115 mph.

According to the study, the turbines should not be damaged and would continue to produce power during these events. By taming the leading edge of the storm, they would also dissipate the buildup of the winds that followed.

As a result, the wind speed would not exceed the turbines' designed cutout speed -- a threshold that prompts the device to go into lockdown and feather its blades to prevent damage.

But, according to the study, these mega-farms would pay for themselves by generating electricity in addition to providing storm protection.

A 20-mile installation off the New York coast would cost about $210 billion  to build.

By way of comparison, Tropical Storm Sandy inflicted about $80 billion  in damage when it hit three states in 2012. The disaster spawned plans to build higher sea walls to shield New York from rising storm surges expected from climate change -- a project that carries estimated costs of between $10-29 billion but produces no revenue.

WIND TURBINE NEWS

New certified small wind turbine announced for US market

The United States has incredible wind power resources, and Government reports predict that 20 percent of electricity will be wind produced by 2030.

There's great community support for developing small wind power, and the latest small wind turbine to pass the Small Wind Certification Council (SWCC), and achieve American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) approval for State incentives is the Kestrel e400nb.

With wind prevalent in most States and an average speed of 4.1 meters per second, wind energy is a great way to become eco-friendly, self-sufficient, less reliant on fossil fuels and reduce your electricity bill. And, depending on your State's scheme, you can even earn money when you send energy back into the grid.

The leading small wind turbine from Kestrel can produce 3,930 kWh annually, and is ideal for the US due to its size and affordability. Teamed with its durability it can withstand high wind speeds (156mph) and has proved itself already in the US with a number of successful installations.

DID YOU KNOW .....?

Top 10 windiest US cities (based on average annual wind speed)

1. Boston, Massachusetts 12.3mph

2. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 12.2mph

3. Buffalo, New York 11.8mph

4. Milwaukee, Wisconsin 11.5mph

5. Dallas, Texas 10.7mph

6. Kansas City, Missouri 10.6mph 

    San Francisco, California 10.6mph

7. Cleveland, Ohio 10.5mph 

    Minneapolis, Minnesota 10.5mph 

    Virginia Beach, Virginia 10.5mph

8. Providence, Rhode Island 10.4mph

9. Chicago, Illinois 10.3mph

10. Detroit, Michigan 10.2mph

A quick science lesson

Electricity produced by the turbine is processed by an electronic inverter and fed into the grid. The property is then preferentially supplied by wind power, and any shortfall during peak demand is supplied by the grid. The result is that your energy bill is reduced by the amount of wind energy that is harvested.

RENEWABLE ENERGIES CONTINUE TO GROW

Renewable energy use gaining worldwide

Renewables like solar and wind represent the fastest-growing source of energy power generation and will make up a quarter of the global power mix by 2018.

In 2016 renewable energy will overtake natural gas as a power source and will be twice that of nuclear, and second only to coal as a source of power.

The growth of renewables -- non-fossil fuels like hydropower, wind, solar, geothermal and bioenergy -- has been bolstered by increased competitiveness compared with conventional energy.

Non-hydro renewable power, mainly wind and solar photovoltaics, is projected to grow from 4 percent of all power generation in 2011 to 8 percent in 2018.

Still there is some uncertainty about long-term government policies that discourages investment; reduced subsidies in some countries due to economic problems; and tough competition from other energy sources, such as the United States, where a boom in shale gas has made that fuel more competitive.

US President Barack Obama's energy and climate proposals were unveiled Tuesday. Obama's polices constitute a clear example of a target that goes beyond the four years of a presidential mandate.

A report released earlier this month warned the world is on track to surpass by more than double the two-degree Celsius warming goal set by the United Nations, unless urgent measures are taken. The recommendations include curtailing coal-fired power stations and phasing out fossil fuel subsidies.

Let's continue the growth in all areas of renewables right here in the USA.

MORE GOOD NEWS FOR RENEWABLE ENERGIES

New Battery Design Could Help Solar and Wind Energy Power the Grid

Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE)  have designed a low-cost, long-life battery that could enable solar and wind energy to become major suppliers to the electrical grid.

For solar and wind power to be used in a significant way, we need a battery made of economical materials that are easy to scale and still be efficient. The believe is that the new battery design may be the best yet designed to regulate the natural fluctuations of these alternative energies.

Currently the electrical grid cannot tolerate large and sudden power fluctuations caused by wide swings in sunlight and wind. As solar and wind's combined contributions to an electrical grid approach 20 percent, energy storage systems must be available to smooth out the peaks and valleys of this "intermittent" power - storing excess energy and discharging when input drops.

Among the most promising batteries for intermittent grid storage today are "flow" batteries, because it's relatively simple to scale their tanks, pumps and pipes to the sizes needed to handle large capacities of energy. The new flow battery developed  has a simplified, less expensive design that presents a potentially viable solution for large-scale production.

Today's flow batteries pump two different liquids through an interaction chamber where dissolved molecules undergo chemical reactions that store or give up energy. The chamber contains a membrane that only allows ions not involved in reactions to pass between the liquids while keeping the active ions physically separated. This battery design has two major drawbacks: the high cost of liquids containing rare materials such as vanadium - especially in the huge quantities needed for grid storage - and the membrane, which is also very expensive and requires frequent maintenance.

The new battery design uses only one stream of molecules and does not need a membrane at all. Its molecules mostly consist of the relatively inexpensive elements lithium and sulfur, which interact with a piece of lithium metal coated with a barrier that permits electrons to pass without degrading the metal. When discharging, the molecules, called lithium polysulfides, absorb lithium ions; when charging, they lose them back into the liquid. The entire molecular stream is dissolved in an organic solvent, which doesn't have the corrosion issues of water-based flow batteries. In initial lab tests, the new battery also retained excellent energy-storage performance through more than 2,000 charges and discharges, equivalent to more than 5.5 years of daily cycles.

To demonstrate the concept, the researchers created a miniature system using simple glassware. Adding a lithium polysulfide solution to the flask immediately produces electricity that lights an LED. A utility version of the new battery would be scaled up to store many megawatt-hours of energy.

Keep checking back to our blog for more updates on news in the renewable energies.

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Gateway Technical Institute adds 3 Windspire wind turbines

For those of you that have driven or walked around the Racine Gateway Campus you have probably noticed the newly installed Windspire wind turbines. ESS installed the three units and they are now producing electricity for the campus. The units are located on the east side of the building and are very easy to see.

Just another way Gateway is looking to improve the look of the campus for the students and to help offset  the rising energy costs.



DREAM WITH THE WIND

Why Small Wind?


For homeowners, farmers, small businesses, and public facilities, a wind turbine is a smart investment that will lower your monthly expenses, increase your net worth, and help support manufacturing jobs. At the same time it will help clean the air, slow climate change, and move us towards energy independence.

For remote sites without grid power, a wind turbine can significantly lower operating costs over a diesel generator and provide sustainable power where the power grid cannot reach.

Electrical Systems and Services, Inc. is an authorized dealer of Bergey Wind Turbines




Why Bergey?

Bergey Windpower is the oldest and most experienced manufacturer of residential-sized wind turbines in the world.

Thirty years ago Bergey pioneered the radically-simple “Bergey design” that has proven to provide the best reliability, performance, service life, and value of all of the hundreds of competitive products that have come and gone in that time. With only three moving parts and no scheduled maintenance necessary, the Bergey 10 kW has compiled a service record that no other wind turbine can match. We back it up with the longest warranty in the industry.

There are now many new small wind products on the market. Though sometimes heavily promoted, these new entrants lack the track record that provides confidence as a sound investment. Over the years Bergey wind turbines have often replaced unsuccessful competitive products. The bottom line is that wind turbines are a big investment, and Bergey is the wise choice.

Windspire catches the wind

Another area of renewable energy ESS is currently involved in is wind power. We have many installations of the Windspire wind turbine in very visable locations. Here is some basic information on the Windpsire wind turbine.

About Windspire


The Windspire Wind Turbine is a radically designed, low-cost, low-noise, attractive wind power turbine for use in urban, suburban, rural and remote locations. Windspire is a propeller-free, vertical-axis design that features patented technology that maximizes energy conversion from wind into electric power, regardless of changing wind speed and direction. Electricity is generated with vertical airfoils that rotate around a center shaft, which will offset energy consumed from the utility. Thus reducing your electric bill and also reducing your impact on the environment. Windspire is designed & engineered in the US and is 100% made in Michigan at a former automotive facility, putting laid off auto-workers back to work. The Windspire has been featured in Fortune, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, and on “20/20”, CNN and NPR. Electrical Systems and Service, Inc. (ESS) is Southeastern Wisconsin’s Authorized Windspire Dealer and will perform a free site assessment and proposal for your Wind Turbine System.