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Wind Power Rising
| Article
# : |
10748 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1993 |
2,602 Words |
| Author
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Darell Dodge
Darrell Dodge is manager of Wind Energy Cooperative Research
for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden,
Colorado. |
This spring, brand-new, domestically built wind turbines began appearing in California, Texas, and upstate New York. These machines, the first new U.S.-built models to appear in nearly a decade, signal what promises to be an era of growth for wind power.
In New York, just east of Watertown, two three-bladed machines are spinning side-by-side in a field. Their blades, painted black to shed ice on cold clear mornings, span a 33-meter (112-foot) diameter rotor sweep area. These machines, developed by U.S. Windpower of Livermore, California, are equipped with electronic controls that permit their power output to vary (from 360 to 405 kilowatts) depending on wind speed.
In the mountains near Tehachapi, in south central California, the hopes of Advanced Wind Turbines of Redmond, Washington, are riding on their prototype--a 26-meter (85-foot) diameter, two-bladed machine rated at 275 kilowatts. Its blades, built of a wood-epoxy composite, ride on a hub that reduces stress on the rotor assembly by teetering back and forth in response to variable wind conditions.
In early April 1993 yet another advanced prototype was installed at a U.S. Department of Agriculture research station near Amarillo, Texas. With its three blades spanning a 15-meter (47-foot) rotor diameter, this machine, built by Atlantic Orient Corporation of Norwich, Vermont, generates 50 kilowatts of power, which makes it ideal for small, remote power systems in sparsely populated arctic and tropical villages.
These three wind turbines will be joined in August 1993 by a fourth 250-kilowatt, advanced prototype developed by Northern Power Systems of Moretown, Vermont. The four new turbines are the result of private and federal development efforts aimed at capturing markets for wind energy in the United States, Europe, and throughout the world.
While building a windmill might seem like a straightforward task, the variability shown by these new machines begins to suggest some of the strong challenges faced by engineers who attempt to maximize conversion of wind energy to electrical energy. The foundation technologies for optimizing the windmill as a high-tech wind turbine competitive with prevailing low-cost energy systems, such as the coal-fired power plant, are now in place. The development of new computer models that embody the best understandings of the wind dynamics and the way rotors are affected by the wind has been a great help.
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