How do wind turbines generate electricity?
A simple logic works behind the working of windmills or wind turbines. They work exactly like the dam turbines, where turbines use the power of moving water and windmill blades use wind energy to push turbines for generating electricity.
Wind flow may vary across the places and thus wind turbines can only be installed in plain areas where they get a constant flow of winds to rotate. A mechanical process is used here to generate electricity from windmills. The wind energy can also be used for grinding grain or pumping water from the ground.
An aerodynamic force is used with the help of fan-like rotor blades to move turbines installed with it. When wind flows, the rotor blades start moving and resulting in rotating turbines and generating electricity.
Types of Turbines Used in Windmill:
Horizontal-Axis Turbines
These are the old-using technology windmills or turbines equipped with four rotor blades. These are the common what we see in most of the windmill pictures on the internet and school books. Mostly, you see three rotor blade windmills, whereas four-blade windmills are rarely found.
Vertical-Axis Turbines
Vertical-axis turbines can be seen in several varieties, which also includes eggbeater-style Darrieus model, named after its French inventor. These turbines are designed omnidirectional, meaning they are automatically adjusted to the point where wind can rotate them easily.
How big are wind turbines?
Industrial wind turbines are a lot bigger than the normal wind turbines you see in schoolyards or houses.
The most common – GE 1.5 megawatt model, holds the blade length of 116 ft., atop 212 ft. of the tower, compounds the total height of 328 ft.
The monstrous 1.8 megawatt Vestas V90 from Denmark carries the blades of 148 ft., atop 262 ft. tower, with a total height of 410 ft.
The most popular US model – Gamesa G87 from Spain generates 2 megawatts of power, with 143 ft. of blades on the tower of 256 ft., which completes the height of 399 ft.
Do you know the transportation process of these turbines?
It is not easy to transport such large items to the remote areas as narrow roads and sharp turns act as hurdles on the way. Therefore, all the parts are detached and taken to the place individually, which later can be installed in the destination place.
Plus, the roads are prepared accordingly to handle the sharp cuts with loading these hugely-weighed wind turbines.