Utility Scale Wind Energy

Prof. Jinsoo Park

UTI-111

Essex County College

Introduction

• Applications of windmills– Sailing ships– Pumping waters– Grinding grains– Sawing– Generating electricity

• History of windmills– Persia– Greece– Rome– Holland– United States

Wind energy

• Wind energy is actually a converted form of solar energy.• The sun’s radiation heats different part of the earth at

different rates during the day and night, but also when different surfaces (e.g., water and land) absorb or reflect at different rates.

• This in turn causes portions of the atmosphere to warm differently.

• Hot airs rises, reducing the atmospheric pressure at the earth’s surface, and cooler air is drawn in to replace it.

• Air has a mass, and when it is in motion, it contains the kinetic from mass in motion.

• Some portion of that energy can be converted into other forms mechanical force or electricity that we can use to perform work.

Wind Turbine

• A wind system transforms the kinetic energy of wind to mechanical or electrical energy.

• Wind turbines are mounted on a tower to capture the most energy.

• Turbines catch the wind’s energy with their propeller-like blades.

• Usually two or three blades are mounted on a shaft to form a rotor.

• A blade acts much like an airplane wing.

Wind Turbine Types

• There are two basic designs of wind electric turbines: vertical-axis (egg-beater style) and horizontal-axis (propeller style).

• Horizontal-axis wind turbines are most common today, constituting nearly all of the utility scale turbines in the global market.

Wind Turbine Components

• A rotor, or blades, which convert the wind energy into rotational shaft energy.

• A nacelle (enclosure) containing a drive train, usually including a gearbox and a generator.

• A tower, to support the rotor and drive train• Electronic equipment such as controls, electric

cables, ground support equipment, and interconnection equipment.

Wind Amplified Rotor Platform

• Wind Amplified Rotor Platform (WARP) is a different kind of wind system that is designed to be more efficient and sue less land than wind machines in use today.

• The WARP does not use large blades; instead it looks like a stack of wheel rims.

• Each module is a pair of small, high-capacity turbines mounted to both of its concave wind amplifier module channel surfaces.

Wind Turbine Capacity

Diameter Capacity

60 ft 0.10 MW

164 ft 0.75 MW

216 ft 1.5 MW

279 ft 2.5 MW

328 ft 3.5 MW

394 ft 5.0 MW

Average Turbine Size

1980 0.25 MW

1995 0.50 MW

0998-1999 0.71 MW

2000-2001 0.88 MW

2002-2003 1.19 MW

2004-2005 1.44 MW

2006 1.60 MW

2007 1.65 MW

Wind Turbine Capacity

• The output of a wind turbine depends on the turbine’s size and the wind’s speed.

• Wind speed is a crucial element in projecting turbine performance.

• A site’s wind speed is measured through wind resource assessment prior to a wind system’s construction.

• Generally, an annual average wind speed greater than 10 mph is required for small wind turbines while larger utility scale wind plants need a slightly higher minimum average wind speed of 13 mph.

Wind Turbine Capacity

• The power available in the wind is proportional to the cube of its speed.

• Doubling the wind speed increases the available power by a factor of eight.

• For example, a turbine operating at a site with an average wind speed of 11 mph could in theory generate 33% more electricity than the one at 10 mph.

• Therefore, a small difference in wind speed can make a big difference in the capacity.

The 7.5 MW Jersey-Atlantic Wind Farm

Jersey-Atlantic Wind Farm• PROJECT

The 7.5-megawatt (MW) Jersey-Atlantic Wind Farm is the first wind farm to be built in New Jersey, and the first coastal wind farm in the United States. The wind farm is located in Atlantic County, NJ and is visible to more than 30 million Atlantic City visitors each year from downtown Atlantic City and the Atlantic City Expressway. The project produces approximately 19 million kilowatt-hours of emission-free electricity per year. The electricity is used by both the Atlantic County Utilities Authority (ACUA) Wastewater Treatment Plant and delivered to the regional electric grid.      

• PROJECT DESIGN Five 1.5 MW GE wind turbines standing 397 feet tall located on the premises of the ACUA Wastewater Treatment Plant in coastal Atlantic City, NJ.

• PROJECT SCHEDULE Ground Breaking- September 2005Turbine Erection - October~December 2005Commercial Operation - December 2005

NJ Off Shore Wind Farm

• Three projects were submitted to the Office of Clean Energy in the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities in March 2008.

• In October 4, 2008, Regulators in New Jersey awarded the rights on Friday for construction of a $1 billion offshore wind farm in the southern part of the state to Garden State Offshore Energy.

• The rights, which include access to as much as $19 million in state grants, is part of New Jersey’s Energy Master Plan, which calls for 20 percent of the state’s energy to come from renewable sources by 2020.

Garden State Offshore Energy (GSOE) will employ a propietary deep water foundationtechnology which enables wind turbines to be located in deep waters far from shore.

Thanks to these deep water foundations, the GSOE project will be locatedmore than 16 miles offshore, making it virtually invisible from New Jersey's beaches.

From the Music Pier in Ocean City, NJ - the location closest to GSOE project – the wind turbines will be virtually invisible from shore.