Can America’s Energy Problems be Gone with the Wind?

1. Can America’s Energy Problems be Gone with the Wind? By:Erin Wright and Mary Beth McLean

2. History of Wind • Wind has been a part of history from the beginning. • The early shipbuilding civilizations relied on the power of wind to propel their ships through the water. • The Dutch built some of the first wind mills in order to mill grain and corn. • Since the 1970s, the United States has been harnessing kinetic energy from the wind and turning it into electricity.

3. What is a Wind Farm? Wind Turbine: energy producing windmill-like structure that converts mechanical energy, produced by the spinning rotar blades, into electric energy. Wind farm: Many inter-connected wind turbines that combine energy through a grid-connected system.

4. Different Locations of Wind Farms • Three types of Wind Turbines based on location : off-shore, near-shore, and onshore turbines.

5. Different Turbine Designs • There are many different ways to build a wind- power creating unit, including designs such as: Darrieus wind turbine • The Giromill • Savonius wind turbine • Windstar turbines

6. Horizontal axis Wind Turbine • But the most common is the horizontal wind turbine, which seems to work the most reliably and efficiently for a variety of different situations. • Typically involves three rotar blades spinning on a horizontal axis connecter to a long tower through which the power cables run down.

7. Horizontal Wind Turbines -The movement of the wind over the aerodynamically shaped blades makes them rotate around a horizontal hub. -This is connected to a shaft inside the nacelle, where the generator and gearbox are found. -The gearbox is a system of gears that transmits the mechanical power from the blades to the generator. -The generator converts the rotating mechanical energy into electricity.

8. Horizontal Wind Turbines (cont.) -The power cables then carry the electrical power to a transformer which converts the electricity to a high voltage before running it back to connect to the grid at a substation. -By connecting hundreds of wind turbines throughout a land (or water) region, you are always guaranteed shared power even if the wind is not blowing in a particular area on the grid region.

9. Horizontal Wind Turbines gearbox- A system of gears that transmits the mechanical power from the blades to the generator. Generator-A machine that converts mechanical energy into electricity. Nacelle-The housing for the generator and gearbox. Yaw Mechanism- measures how much the rotors are spinning off axis due to wind stress and works to keeps the blades in the direction of the wind wherever that may be.

10. Wind Farm Facts • The total height of the EcoEnergy wind turbine from the ground to the tip of a blade is 397 feet. • The rotar blades measure 131 feet long. • Only 1% of America’s electricity comes from wind power. • Each of EcoEnergy Wind ’s 1.5 megawatt wind turbines produces an average of 4 million kilowatt hours of energy each year, releasing no C02 emissions. A typical power plant burning fossil fuel to produce the same amount of energy releases 6.84 million pounds of pollutants into the air. Information from www. ecoenergyllc.com, official EcoEnergy wind farm website

11. How Much Energy does a Wind Turbine Create? • Different turbine designs generate different amounts of power. • Individual turbines, even of the same design, will differ in the amount of energy that they produce. • EcoEnergy’s turbines create approximately 1.5 megawatts (MW) of power each. • The average American household uses about 10,655 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity each year. • One MW of wind energy can generate from 2.4 to more than 3 million kWh each year, so each one of EcoEnergy’s turbines can generate enough electricity to power 337 - 422 homes each year. Information from www. ecoenergyllc.com, official EcoEnergy wind farm website

12. Advances in Wind Farm Technology • The first wind farms featured turbines with blades that were forced to rotate at a rapid rate to produce minimal efficiency. As a result, some people believed that birds and bats were killed by the rapidly rotating blades. • Now, wind turbines feature larger blades that rotate at a slower rate. • The National Audubon Society now endorses wind technology. • New wind turbine technology has also allowed for more efficient turbines in areas where the wind doesn’t blow extremely rapidly. • New generators have also allowed for more “grid friendly” wind farms. This has been achieved through low voltage grid ride thru technology (LVRT).

13. Wind Farm Advantages The advantages of wind power include: • Free fuel source • Environmentally benign • No harmful emissions of greenhouse gases or other chemicals • Safe for the surrounding environment • Wind is the fastest growing form of alternative energy in the United States in terms of overall market penetration. • Wind is one of the most cost-efficient large scale renewable energy sources. • Wind energy does not deplete any non-renewable natural resources.

14. Wind Farm Advantages (cont.) • In 2000, the Harvard School of Public Health looked at the human health effects from two fossil-fuel-fired power plants in Massachusetts. It estimates that the air pollution from the plants each year causes: -159 premature deaths -1,710 emergency room visits -43,300 asthma attacks The creation of alternative energy sources contributes to lessening the harmful effects of fossils fuels. • CO2, the gas oftentimes associated with global warming, is not produced by wind energy.

15. Wind Farm Disadvantages • Wind power disadvantages include: • wind farms take up land space • need a lot of funding to make, even if they will pay off later • some people believe they take away from the beauty of the landscape • concern for birds and the turbine blades, but recent improvements made sure that blades move slow enough that they so not pose a real threat to wildlife. • When interconnecting grids across large expanse of land are not utilized, wind energy becomes very unpredictable and inefficient. However, when wind farms are connected, the wind output becomes more mathematically predictable.

16. Important Factors in constructing a successful wind farm: • A strong wind resource • An area with physical and topographical advantages (Elevation, etc.) • An area that is interconnected to a grid • These factors narrow possible wind farm locations in the Midwest to pockets where successful wind farms can be created.

17. Wind Farms in our Area • Stephenson County, IL • 100 MW • 25000 homes • $200 million • 9 months • 200 jobs (6-10 permanent) • $11 million in taxes • No burden to local infrastructure

18. Financial Implications • Economically Competitive • Production Tax Credit • Boom and Bust Cycle • Legislation

19. United States vs. Europe USA: -Legislation -Willingness -Oil Prices -Energy Crisis -Predictions for the future: 2030 Europe: -Offshore Technology -10 years ahead of the United States -Leading European countries -Predictions for the future

20. The United States can currently generate more than 10,000 MW of electricity of the wind, which is enough to power 2.5 million average American homes. California the state in which the most wind power development has occurred. In 2004, California possessed 2096 MW of wind generating capacity. One MW of wind energy is capable of supplying energy to 240-300 average American homes. Current Wind Energy Statistics

21. Wind Energy Statistics • Wind plant typically cost approximately $1000 per kilowatt of installed capacity. • In total, the installed 6,740 MW of wind energy (as of January 2005) account for nearly $7 billion in investments in the US windmarket. • The current power capacity of the Illinois wind market is 735.66MW. Technology capable of producing an additional 171MW is currently being constructed in various locations throughout the state.

22. World Leaders in Wind Capacity

23. America’s Energy Crisis • In 1999, the United States consumed 95 quadrillion BTUs of energy, while only producing 61 quadrillion BTUs. = 34 quadrillion BTU energy deficit. • We use more energy than we produce domestically. • Along with dependence on expensive imported energy, the need to transport energy over large distances contributes to the shortage and cost of American energy. • Our economy is threatened because all aspects of it are dependent on a steady supply of affordable energy, which we can no longer depend on.

24. America’s Energy Crisis • Economic growth and increased energy demand are closely linked to increased emissions of CO2. • The recent "energy takeoff" of developing economies such as China and India is placing pressure on a global oil supply already struggling to meet demand. • We are not only paying billions annually to foreign governments for our economy's energy supply, but we are also investing in their energy production instead of our own, which weakens our economic capability and security.

25. America’s Energy Crisis

26. America’s Energy Crisis

27. Imported Crude Oil as a Percent of US Consumption 1950-2003

28. World Energy Consumption:

29. PowerPoint Sources/ For More Information… • www.awea.org (American Wind Energy Association) • www.nrel.gov (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) • www.ifnotwind.com • www.econenergyllc.com (Source for Stephenson County, IL and other Midwest wind farm projects) • United States Department of Energy

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