The human tradition of harnessing wind power spans several millenia. Prior examples of how the wind is often utilized may be found in the use of windmills in irrigation and grain producing efforts. There is also the use of wind power in the field of navigation through the use of sailing ships (Burton, 2001).
The invention of the 12KW DC windmill generator in the late 19th century has paved the way for endeavours of the sort, and although mainstream electrical power sources do not necessarily use renewable energy, consumers and investors are increasingly considering wind power alternatives (Burton, 2001).
What are Turbines?
A turbine is a machine which is used to produce electricity. It is based on the principle of spinning a set of magnets over a series of coils or vice versa to produce electricity. The variations of this concept abound. In short, the turbine is used to harness energy from several reliable sources namely, wind water, steam power and even nuclear power (Manney, 2011).
What are wind turbines?
Given that turbines are also used to capture wind energy, wind turbines are simply turbines which are optimized with apparatus such as propellers and the like for manipulating wind energy. Wind turbines may come in various shapes and sizes and several varieties. There is a proliferation of manufactured and home-made models online.
Wind turbines are rated in terms of the amount of kilowatts they are capable of producing. As such, the categories are:
- micro
- small
- medium
- large
- ultra-large
Vertical-axis wind turbines
Vertical wind turbines are less commercialized than the horizontal alternatives are. They have the advantage of catching the wind from any direction, and also no yaw control is required. The horizontal-axis turbines tend to have higher efficiency than the vertical ones. Also because of their particular make, vertical wind turbines have an inherent size and height constraint, while the horizontal models do not (Tong, 2010).
Even though Tong (2010) suggests that the vertical-axis wind turbine is cheaper to make because of its simplicity; Hau (2006) suggests that because of its design, the vertical-axis turbine requires a larger and heavier foundation, which may make it more expensive.
Popular types of vertical-axis wind turbines
- Savonius
- Solarwind
- Helical
- Noguchi
- Maglev
- Cochrane
- Darrius
Most importantly, one of the assets of the vertical-axis wind turbines is that because of their simple design, it is very convenient to house mechanical and electrical components such as the gear-box and generator at ground level (Hau, 2006, p. 70).
Sources:
- Hau, E. (2006) Wind turbines: fundamentals, technologies, application, economics: Birkhäuser.
- Tong, W. (2010) Wind Power Generation and Wind Turbine Design: WIT Press.
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