Alternative power - Wind Energy

This is another type of energy which is not much publicised due to many factors. The amount of intial investment is very large and also the requirement of wind to flow throughout the year in the same place is very less. Also the cost of maintenance is high as the blades of the windmill is to be really taken care off. Usually installation of these are done on large scale to cut down on the overall costs of the windmill. When many number of such windmills are put then they are known as wind farms. With wind farms, production of power is done on large scale to meet the power demands.

Currently in India those places which have a very good possibility of having winds flowing throughout the year are taken into consideration. Tamil Nadu state is one of the best locations were winds flow throughtout the year. This state produces 60% of the total wind power produced in India. It' s current status is 1600 MW and is planned to increase by double soon. These quantities of power donot contribute much to the national power generation but it is way better than burning that much fossil fuel to gain that energy. Sooner or later better renewable energy will be taken into consideration.

Better ways to perfect and gain more from these wind energies are still underway. Hopefully in the future better solutions can be found for harnessing wind energy. Also lately offshore wind energy farms are being made. These are in experimental stages to check out the after effects of such projects to the surroundings and environment. Example like conditions where ships or boats colliding with the windmills; also effects seen by birds and fishes on these windmills have to be seen and determined. But this could be another future prospect if we are running out of land. Even there is 20-40% more wind energy detected in the sea compared to the land.

Let's see the round about figures for the height of the windmills and blade sizes with the amount of power produced. A Windmill with 3 blades are attached at 120 degrees are taken into consideration. The height of the windmill is from the ground to the center of the blade joints. The following will give the data (these windmills should be set up at good wind flowing locations) :

• Height is 100 feet & blade length is 12 feet. Power 10KW.
• Height is 132 feet & length is 66 feet. Power 500 KW.
• Height is 262 feet & length is 135 feet. Power 1650 KW.