Week

2.2 - Wind energy

Welcome back to this week of renewable energy generation in this video we will discuss the
theoretical potential of Wind Energy.

In week 5, we will discuss wind energy technologies and systems in great technical detail.

This is the image most people will visualize when they think about wind energy.

A large wind turbine, with slowly rotating blades.

But how much energy does this large turbine generate?

And what is the generation limit of such a turbine and, what is the energy potential of the
wind to begin with?

To understand that, we need to understand the basics of how wind energy conversion
technologies work.

The main principle of a wind turbine is to convert the kinetic energy in the wind, into usable
electricity.

Lets first take a look at a real life installation before diving into the theory of wind energy.

The country of Denmark is a worldwide leader when it comes to wind power.

Denmark produces about 40% of their electricity demand with Wind power alone.

In 2015 they had a total installed capacity of 5.07 GW, with which they produced 14.13 TWh.

This is about 0.04 TWh/day.

With a population of approximately 5.7 million people, the wind energy generated in
Denmark is about 7kWh/person/day, which is equal to 2.4 human energy units.

We can again calculate a value expressed in kWh/W of installed capacity.

In the case of Denmark we just have to divide the 14.13 TWh/year by the 5.07GW of
installed capacity to get about 2.8 kWh/W of installed capacity.

If we divide it again by the hours in a year we get a capacity factor of 0.32.

This we can now compare with Cf of the example of hydroelectricity of 0.7, to conclude that
wind energy produces less electricity per installed capacity unit then hydroelectricity.

This is caused by daily and seasonal changes in wind speeds and because a wind turbine
does not operate at maximum power for low wind speeds.

Now we will verify these numbers with some theoretical calculations of wind energy.

Like mentioned before, we need to transform the kinetic energy in the wind into usable
electric energy.

However, not all of the kinetic energy in the wind can be turned into electricity.

Energy extracted from the wind by the turbine at A causes the wind speed to decline to
velocity v2 and the airflow behind the turbine will expand to an area as big as A2.

This effect also takes place in front of the turbine.

The area from which energy can be extracted with the original wind speed of v1 is only as
large as A1.

So geometrically there is a theoretical limit of 59.3% of the energy in the wind that can be
converted into mechanical energy.

This law was found by and named after Albert Betz, a German physicist.

In practise the maximum efficiency of commercial wind turbines is between 40 and 50 % at

ideal wind speeds.

This is among other things due to inefficiencies in the power system and the gearbox.

The efficiency also drops for low and high wind speeds.

Lets get into some basic physics to make a rough estimate of the power in the wind.

The general equation for kinetic energy is: Ekin equals times the mass times the velocity
squared.

The mass of the wind can be expressed in terms of a mass flow per unit of time.

We can then equate the following E_kin per unit of time equals times mass flow per unit
of time times the velocity of the wind squared.

Energy per unit time is effectively the kinetic power of the wind.

If the wind velocity is a given for a certain height or region, all we need now is to calculated
the mass flow of the wind.

For this we need to define a surface area through which the wind flows.

This is represented by the frontal surface area of the wind turbine.

The equation for the mass flow of the wind is as follows: the Mass flow equals the frontal
area of the wind turbine, multiplied by the density of air times the velocity of the air.

We should get a number expressed in the unit kg/s.

When we check our units we see that the surface is expressed in meter squared multiplied
by the density in kg per meter cubed finally multiplied by the velocity in m/s, will result in
the unit kg/s.

We now put this mass flow back into the equation for the wind power.

This results in the equation Power_wind equals times density of air times frontal surface
area times the velocity of the air times the velocity of the air squared.

Which effectively the velocity of the air to the power of 3.

This is the power available in the wind, which still has to be multiplied by the power
coefficient.

This power coefficient defines the efficiency of a certain windturbine and is dependent on
the windspeed.

There is a great variety of wind turbines nowadays.

The height of the towers can go up to 150 meter while the Rotor diameter can be as large as
150 meter

Lets use the equations for a typical wind turbine.We will take the Enercon E-126 wind
turbine as an example.

It has a rotor diameter of 126 meters and a power coefficient of 0.483 at a windspeed of 10
m/s.

The frontal surface area will now be A = Pi times (D/2) squared which is 12.469 square
meters.

The density of air is known.

So the only thing missing is the wind speed which is highly dependent on the location.

We will assume 10m/s as an average wind speed at the location our Enercon turbine.

Now the power in the wind is P_wind = times 1.23 kg/m^3 times 12.469 m^2 times 10^3
m^3/s^3.

This will result in a potential power in the wind of approximately 7.7MW.

However, this is not yet the power that can be extracted by the turbine.

The power of the turbine is the power available in the wind multiplied by the power
coefficient, in this case 7.7MW times 0.483, which equates to 3.7MW.

This is very close to the actual value of 3.75MW in the datasheet of the Enercon wind
turbine.

With the simple estimation we just made, you are now able to make a back of the envelope
calculation about the wind energy potential in your region.

All you really need is data on the average wind speed and an assumed size of a wind turbine.

Note, that a more accurate calculation will have a higher complexity than presented here
and this will be discussed in week 5.

Lets also look at the surface power density of wind energy per land area.

Wind turbines cant be placed too close to each other because they will steal each other's
wind energy that way.

Research has found that the surface power density of land based wind energy averaged over
24 hours of an entire day is about 2 Watt per square meters, resulting from the spacing of
the wind turbines, as well as the availability of less wind inland.

An offshore wind park will result in higher power densities in the order of 3 Watt per square
meter.

Note, that this heavily depends on the typical wind speeds at the location of the wind park.

To get an average energy density in kilowatthour per square meter per year we just have to
multiply the surface power density with the hours in a year and divide by 1000.

In this case its 17.5.

Another factor we mentioned in the previous video was the CO2 footprint per kWh of hydro
generated energy.

In the case of Wind energy the average footprint over the entire lifetime of a wind turbine, is
11 gCO2/kWh for onshore wind, and 12 g for offshore projects.

As you can imagine, the height and surroundings of a wind turbine greatly influence the
wind speed they are exposed to.

The wind speed will be higher if both the landscape is as flat as possible without any
obstacles, and the hub of the turbine is higher.

Additionally if you are closer to the coast of a country, you will receive more wind.

Finally let's take quick look again into the global status of wind energy.

In 2012 the global installed capacity was 283 GW, producing 521 TWh of electricity.

This was about 2.3% of the global electricity demand, and about 10% of all renewable
electricity.

We can also express the production of hydroelectricity in our own units:If we divide it by the
global population of 7.4 billion people and days in a year to get 0.19 kWh/person/day.

Which is a little more then 0.07 human unit.

Windpower can provide multiple times the world's need for energy.

Try to do some calculations on the wind potential in your region and the world with the
following exercises on the EDx platform.