WIND ENERGY APPLICATIONS GUIDE

WIND ENERGY APPLICATIONS GUIDE

INTRODUCTION

Wind energy has been used since the earliest civilization to grind grain, pump water from deep wells, and power sailboats. Wind-mills in pre-industrial Europe were used for many things, including irrigation or drainage pumping, grain-grinding, saw-milling of timber, and the processing of other commodities such as spices, cocoa, paints and dyes, and tobacco. Before the U.S. installed an infrastructure of electricity wires, both water-pumping windmills and small wind elec-tric turbines (“wind chargers”) were vital to farming and developing the American Great Plains and west.

In recent decades, the industry has been perfecting the wind turbine to convert the power of the wind into electricity. The wind turbine has many advantages that make it an attractive energy source, especially in parts of the world where the transmission infrastructure is not fully developed. It is modular and can be installed relatively quickly, so it is easy to match electricity supply and demand. The fuel – the wind – is free and plentiful, which eliminates or reduces the need to purchase, ship, and store expensive fuels. It is flexible – with the power generated, households use can use appliances, such as light-ing and refrigeration, schools can use computers and televisions, and industries can access a reliable power source. Perhaps most impor-tantly, the generator does not produce any harmful emissions in the process of generating the electricity, unlike many other generation sources.

The use of renewables to provide power to remote villages has had a mixed record in the past be-cause maintenance was costly and replacement parts difficult to obtain. However, due to research on very low-maintenance designs, small wind turbines are once again gaining popularity as an economical way to bring the benefits of power production to homes, villages, and industries that may be remote from an es-tablished grid or wish to operate without burning fossil fuels. Large wind turbines can be price-competitive with any other form of generating technology in good wind resource areas.

Wind energy conversion systems are available in a wide range of sizes and can fit almost any ap-plication where power is needed. This brochure is designed to briefly explain the applications for which wind power is currently best suited in international applications and provide some contact numbers for further research.

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