A turbine is a rotary mechanical device that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work. The work produced can be used for generating electrical power when combined with a generator. A turbine is a turbomachine with at least one moving part called a rotor assembly, which is a shaft or drum with blades attached. Moving fluid acts on the blades so that they move and impart rotational energy to the rotor. Early turbine examples are windmills and waterwheels.
A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid.
Wind power is the use of wind energy to generate useful work. Historically, wind power was used by sails, windmills and windpumps, but today it is mostly used to generate electricity. This article deals only with wind power for electricity generation. Today, wind power is generated almost completely with wind turbines, generally grouped into wind farms and connected to the electrical grid.
In aeronautics, a ducted fan is a thrust-generating mechanical fan or propeller mounted within a cylindrical duct or shroud. Other terms include ducted propeller or shrouded propeller. When used in vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) applications it is also known as a shrouded rotor.
A wind farm or wind park, also called a wind power station or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundred wind turbines covering an extensive area. Wind farms can be either onshore or offshore.
Turbomachinery, in mechanical engineering, describes machines that transfer energy between a rotor and a fluid, including both turbines and compressors. While a turbine transfers energy from a fluid to a rotor, a compressor transfers energy from a rotor to a fluid.
An airborne wind turbine is a design concept for a wind turbine with a rotor supported in the air without a tower, thus benefiting from the higher velocity and persistence of wind at high altitudes, while avoiding the expense of tower construction, or the need for slip rings or yaw mechanism. An electrical generator may be on the ground or airborne. Challenges include safely suspending and maintaining turbines hundreds of meters off the ground in high winds and storms, transferring the harvested and/or generated power back to earth, and interference with aviation.
Small wind turbines, also known as micro wind turbines, generate electricity for small-scale use. These turbines are typically smaller than those found in wind farms. Small wind turbines often have passive yaw systems as opposed to active ones. They use a direct drive generator and use a tail fin to point into the wind, whereas larger turbines have geared powertrains that are actively pointed into the wind.
Wind turbine design is the process of defining the form and configuration of a wind turbine to extract energy from the wind. An installation consists of the systems needed to capture the wind's energy, point the turbine into the wind, convert mechanical rotation into electrical power, and other systems to start, stop, and control the turbine.
Unconventional wind turbines are those that differ significantly from the most common types in use.
Burton Wold Wind Farm is a wind farm located near Burton Latimer in the English county of Northamptonshire, UK. The farm was developed by Your Energy Ltd, is owned by Mistral Windfarms and operated by Engineering Renewables Ltd. E.ON UK is buying the electricity output of the project under a long-term power purchase agreement. The farm is spread over three hectares. It has an installed capacity of 20 MW and generate on average around 40,000,000 units of electricity annually.
The environmental impact of electricity generation from wind power is minor when compared to that of fossil fuel power. Wind turbines have some of the lowest global warming potential per unit of electricity generated: far less greenhouse gas is emitted than for the average unit of electricity, so wind power helps limit climate change. Wind power consumes no fuel, and emits no air pollution, unlike fossil fuel power sources. The energy consumed to manufacture and transport the materials used to build a wind power plant is equal to the new energy produced by the plant within a few months.
The shrouded tidal turbine is an emerging tidal stream technology that has a turbine enclosed in a venturi shaped shroud or duct (ventuduct), producing a sub atmosphere of low pressure behind the turbine. The venturi shrouded turbine is not subject to the Betz limit and allows the turbine to operate at higher efficiencies than the turbine alone by increasing the volume of the flow over the turbine. Claimed improvements vary, from 1.15 to 4 times higher power output than the same turbine minus the shroud. The Betz limit of 59.3% conversion efficiency for a turbine in an open flow still applies, but is applied to the much larger shroud cross-section rather than the small turbine cross-section.
A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. As of 2020, hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, were generating over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year. Wind turbines are an increasingly important source of intermittent renewable energy, and are used in many countries to lower energy costs and reduce reliance on fossil fuels. One study claimed that, as of 2009, wind had the "lowest relative greenhouse gas emissions, the least water consumption demands and the most favorable social impacts" compared to photovoltaic, hydro, geothermal, coal and gas energy sources.
Compact Wind Acceleration Turbines (CWATs) are a class of wind turbine that uses structures to accelerate wind before it enters the wind-generating element. The concept of these structures has been around for decades but has not gained wide acceptance in the marketplace. In 2008, two companies targeting the mid-wind marketplace have received funding from venture capital. The first company to receive funding is Optiwind, which received its series A funding in April 2008, and the second company is Ogin, Inc., which also received its series A funding in April 2008. Optiwind is funded through Charles River Ventures and FloDesign is funded through Kleiner Perkins. Other CWATs under development include the WindTamer from AristaPower, WindCube, Innowind and Enflo turbines.
A tidal farm is a group of multiple tidal stream generators assembled in the same location used for production of electric power, similar to that of a wind farm. The low-voltage powerlines from the individual units are then connected to a substation, where the voltage is stepped up with the use of a transformer for distribution through a high voltage transmission system.
A tidal stream generator, often referred to as a tidal energy converter (TEC), is a machine that extracts energy from moving masses of water, in particular tides, although the term is often used in reference to machines designed to extract energy from run of river or tidal estuarine sites. Certain types of these machines function very much like underwater wind turbines, and are thus often referred to as tidal turbines. They were first conceived in the 1970s during the oil crisis.
Vortex Bladeless Ltd. is a Spanish technology startup company that is developing a type of wind power generator without rotating blades or lubricants, unlike the more common wind turbines. Power is produced from resonant vibrations produced when wind passes the turbine and is deflected into vortices in a process called vortex shedding.
A diffuser-augmented wind turbine (DAWT) is a wind turbine modified with a cone-shaped wind diffuser that is used to increase the efficiency of converting wind power to electrical power. The increased efficiency is possible due to the increased wind speeds the diffuser can provide. In traditional bare turbines, the rotor blades are vertically mounted at the top of a support tower or shaft. In a DAWT, the rotor blades are mounted within the diffuser, which is then placed on the top of the support tower. Additional modifications can be made to the diffuser in order to further increase efficiency.
A vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT) is a type of wind turbine where the main rotor shaft is set transverse to the wind while the main components are located at the base of the turbine. This arrangement allows the generator and gearbox to be located close to the ground, facilitating service and repair. VAWTs do not need to be pointed into the wind, which removes the need for wind-sensing and orientation mechanisms. Major drawbacks for the early designs included the significant torque ripple during each revolution, and the large bending moments on the blades. Later designs addressed the torque ripple by sweeping the blades helically. Savonius vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWT) are not widespread, but their simplicity and better performance in disturbed flow-fields, compared to small horizontal-axis wind turbines (HAWT) make them a good alternative for distributed generation devices in an urban environment.
