B1. Wind Energy – Leading Renewables

Today’s world community is faced with the obligation to secure ecologically clean and economically self-sustainable future.

Heading in that direction, a global consensus has already been reached, which, among other things, relies on a faster development of renewable sources of energy, with a goal of increased their share in the total global energy production above the current levels, as soon and as much as possible.

Thanks to enormous technological advances in the production of wind energy, its ever-growing participation in the production of energy around the world and the role it plays in the protection of the environment, wind energy is becoming a leading renewable energy source.

As one of the forms of solar energy, wind is a free and unlimited source of energy.

In locations with favorable wind potential, the production of wind energy is already able to compete with conventional production of energy from fossil fuels, both in terms of investments and production prices. It can even be considered to be ahead in this race considering that the production price of electrical energy from wind has the advantage of long-term predictability, due to the fact that, unlike fossil fuels, wind is a free source of energy.

B2. Environmental Benefits Of Wind Power

CO₂ Emissions

Wind power is a clean, emissions-free power generation technology. Like all renewable sources it is based on capturing the energy from natural forces and has none of the polluting effects associated with ‘conventional’ fuels.

Wind energy produces no carbon dioxide - the main greenhouse gas contributing to climate change – during its operation, and minimal quantities during the manufacture of its equipment and construction of wind farms.

By contrast, fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil are major emitters of carbon dioxide.

The power sector today accounts for about 40% of global CO2 emissions, while any improvements in the efficiency of thermal power stations are being offset by the strong growth in global power demand. To generate the same amount of electricity as today’s global installed capacity of wind power would require burning more than 25 million tonnes of coal or more than 17 million tonnes of oil every year.

Global wind energy capacity could reach more than 1,000 GW by the end of 2020, producing about 2,600 TWh of electricity per year. This would save as much as 1,500 million tones of CO2 every year (www.gweo.net).

Air Pollution

Development of wind power sector also has a positive effect on the quality of the air we breathe.

The combustion of fossil fuels also produces the gases sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, both serious sources of pollution. These gases are the main components of the ‘acid rain’ effect - killing forests, polluting watercourses and corroding facades of buildings; not to mention the human health effects.

Wind energy avoids the numerous issues associated with the discovery and exploitation of fossil fuels. Deaths from mining, the massive destruction of strip mining and ‘hill-top removal’ and fuel spills are just some of the consequences of dependence on recovering raw materials for electricity generation from under the ground.

Visual Impact

Wind turbines are highly visible elements in the landscape. They need to be tall in order to catch the prevailing wind and work effectively. How people perceive them varies, but many see wind farms as elegant and graceful symbols of a better, less polluted future.

In comparison to other energy developments, however, such as nuclear, coal and gas power stations or open cast coal mining, wind farms have relatively little visual impact.

Surveys of public opinion show that most people who live near wind energy generation units find them less intrusive once they are operating than they might have feared beforehand.

Although a wind energy project can spread across a large total land area, it does not occupy all that space. Farming or leisure activities can still continue around the turbines.

Noise

Compared to other types of industrial plants, wind farms are extremely quiet. Even though turbines are commonly located in rural areas, where background noise is lower, the roar of the wind often masks any sound their operation might make. Measured in a range of 35 to 45 decibels at a distance of 350 metres from the turbines, their sound is similar to the background noise found in a typical home.

The sounds emitted from wind turbines can either be mechanical, from internal equipment such as the gearbox or yaw drive, or aerodynamic, from air moving past the rotor blades. Modern turbine designs have effectively reduced mechanical sound through sound proofing so that the “whooshing” aerodynamic sound is what can normally be heard.

Thousands of wind turbines have been installed around the world, many in close proximity to other types of land use, with minimal sound issues. The wind industry seeks to be a good neighbor and addresses concerns where they arise.

B3. – Technology And Industrial Development

Modern wind turbines

Since the 1980s when the first commercial wind turbines were developed, their installed capacity, efficiency and visual design have all improved enormously.

The vast majority of commercial turbines now operate on a horizontal axis with three evenly spaced blades. These are attached to a rotor from which power is transferred through a gearbox to a generator. The gearbox and generator are contained within a housing called a nacelle.

Some turbine designs avoid a gearbox by using direct drive. The electricity is then transmitted down the tower to a transformer and eventually into the grid network.

Wind turbines can operate across a wide range of wind speeds - from 3-4 metres per second up to about 25 m/s, which translates into 90 km/h (56 mph), and would be the equivalent of gale force 9 or 10.

The majority of current turbine models make best use of the constant variations in the wind by changing the angle of the blades through ‘pitch control’, by turning or “yawing” the entire rotor as wind direction shifts and by operating at variable speed.

Operation at variable speed enables the turbine to adapt to varying wind speeds and increases its ability to harmonise with the operation of the electricity grid. Sophisticated control systems enable fine-tuning of the turbine’s performance and electricity output.

Wind turbines have also grown larger and taller. The generators in the largest modern turbines are 100 times the size of those in 1980.

Over the same period, their rotor diameters have increased eight-fold.

The average capacity of turbines installed around the world during 2007 was 1,492 kW, while the largest turbine currently in operation is the Enercon Ee126, with a rotor diameter of 126 metres and a power capacity of 6 M.

Ongoing innovations in turbine design include the use of different combinations of composite materials to manufacture blades, especially to ensure that their weight is kept to a minimum variations in the drive train system to reduce loads and increase reliability and improved control systems, partly to ensure better compatibility with the grid network.

Manufacture and installation

Complete wind turbines and their support components are manufactured in factories spread throughout the world. The leading turbine manufacturers are based in Denmark, Germany, Spain, the United States, India and China.

Modern turbines are modular and quick to install; the site construction process can take a matter of months. This is of particular importance for countries in need of a rapid increase in electricity generation.

Wind farms can vary in size from a few megawatts up to several hundred.

The largest wind farm in the world is the Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center in Texas.

A total of 421 wind turbines spread across a large area have an installed capacity of 735.5 MW.

The variability of the wind has produced far fewer problems for electricity grid management than skeptics had anticipated. In very windy periods, for example, wind turbines can cover more than the entire power demand in the western part of Denmark and the grid operators are able to manage this successfully.

Investment opportunities

As its economic attractiveness has increased, wind energy has become big business. The major wind turbine manufacturers are now commissioning multi-million dollar factories around the world in order to satisfy demand.

The wind energy business is attracting serious interest from outside investors. In 2002, for instance, turbine manufacturer Enron Wind was bought by a division of General Electric, one of the world’s largest corporations. This lead was followed by Siemens, which took over Danish manufacturer Bonus Energy in 2004.

On the electricity supply side, several large conventional power companies have now become major owners and operators of wind farms. Spanish company Iberdrola is the market leader with over 8,000 MW of wind power in it is portfolio.

FPL Energy in the United States is next with over 5,500 MW, but the growing list of established utilities investing heavily in wind now includes, UK’s Southern Electric, RWE, E.ON, EDF and many others.

B4. Global Wind Power 2008.

In another record year for new installations, global wind energy capacity surged by 28.8% in 2008.

The US passed Germany to become the number one market in wind power, and China’s total capacity doubled for the fourth year in a row.

The world’s total installed capacity reached 120 .8 GW at the end of 2008, over 27 GW of which came online in 2008 alone, representing a 36% growth rate in the annual market.

These figures show that there is huge and growing global demand for emissions-free wind power, which can be installed quickly, virtually everywhere in the world.

Wind energy has become an important player in the world’s energy markets, with the 2008 market for turbine installations worth about € 36 .5 billion.

The wind industry also creates many new jobs; over 400,000 people are now employed in this industry, and that number is expected to be in the millions in the near future.

Wind energy is the only power generation technology that can deliver the necessary cuts in CO2 emissions from the power sector in the critical period up to 2020, when greenhouse gas emissions must peak and begin to decline if we are to have any hope of avoiding the worst impacts of climate change.

The 120.8 GW of global wind capacity installed by the end of 2008 will produce 260 TWh of electricity and save 158 million tons of CO₂ every year.

B5. WIND Energy Market forecast 2009-2013.

Over the past three or four years, two markets have continuously outperformed our most optimistic expectations – the US and China.

For the next year or two, developments in the US will be hampered by a lack of financing and the overall economic downturn.

At the same time, growth in China is set to continue at a breathtaking rate, and this will drive a substantial increase in global wind energy installations in the coming years.

GWEC predicts that in 2013, five years from now, global wind generating capacity will stand at 332 GW, up from 120 GW at the end of 2008.

The annual growth rates during this period will average 22 .4% in terms of total installed capacity, and 15 .8% for the annual market. These rates are modest compared to past developments: in the last ten years, we have seen an average increase of 28.2% for total capacity and 28.3% for annual capacity.

B6. European Union – The World’s Leading Regional Market In Wind Energy

The EU continues to be world’s leader in total installed wind energy capacity, and one of the strongest regions for new development, with over 8 .4 GW of new installed capacity in 2008.

Industry statistics compiled by the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) show that cumulative wind capacity increased by 15% to reach a level of 64,949 MW, up from 56,535 MW at the end of 2007.

In the EU, wind power continues to be one of the most popular electricity generating technologies.

Since 2000, the installed wind capacity has increased almost seven-fold from 9 .7 GW to 65 GW.

Wind energy is now the fastest growing power technology in Europe: out of around 24 GW of total new power generation capacity built in the EU in 2008, wind energy accounted for more than 35%.

As a result, renewable energy represented over 57% of all newly added power capacity in the EU in 2008.

By the end of the year, a total of 160,000 workers were employed directly and indirectly in the wind energy sector, which saw investments of about 11 billion Euros in the EU.

The wind power capacity installed by the end of 2008 will produce 142 TWh of electricity, equal to about 4 .2% of the EU’s electricity demand. This will avoid the emission of 108 million tonnes of C02 per year, the equivalent of taking more than 50 million cars off Europe’s roads.

As a comparison, in 2000, less than 0 .9% of EU electricity demand was met by wind power.