Renewable Energy Research Laboratory, University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Wind Power:
Wind Technology Today
Wind Power on the Community Scale
Community
Wind Power
Fact Sheet # 1
RERL—MTC
Community Wind W i n d Po we r Tech n o l o g y for
Fact Sheet Series

In collaboration with the Mas-

C o m mu n i t i e s
sachusetts Technology Col- This introduction to wind power technology is We also recommend a visit to a modern wind
laborative’s Renewable Energy meant to help communities begin considering or power installation – it will answer many of your
Trust Fund, the Renewable planning wind power. It focuses on commercial initial questions, including size, noise levels, foot-
Energy Research Lab (RERL) and medium-scale wind turbine technology avail- print, and local impact. Some possible field trips
able in the United States. are listed on the back page.
brings you this series of fact
sheets about Wind Power on
the community scale:
1. Technology
W i n d Po w e r To d a y
2. Performance
Wind power is a growing industry, and the technol-
3. Impacts & Issues
ogy has changed considerably in recent decades.
4. Siting What would a typical commercial-scale* turbine
5. Resource Assessment installed today look like?
6. Wind Data
• Design - 3 blades
7. Permitting The focus of this
- Tubular tower
series of fact
• Hub-height - 164 - 262 ft (50 - 80 m)
sheets is medium-
• Diameter: - 154 - 262 ft (47 - 80 m) and commercial-
• Power ratings available in the US: scale wind.
- 660 kW - 1.8 MW
* Other scales are discussed below. A wind turbine’s height is usually
described as the height of the center
of the rotor, or hub.
Inside this Edition:
Technology S i z e R a n ge s
What do we mean here when we say “community-scale wind power”?
Introduction p. 1
Windpower can be divided into three size ranges, • Diameter: 13 - 30 m (43 - 100 ft)
Wind Power Today p. 1 which are used for different applications. The focus • Height: 35 - 50 m (115 - 164 ft)
of this series of fact sheets is medium and commer-
• Example: 597,000 kWh/year
Size ranges p. 1 cial-scale wind power. The size is chosen differ-
Commercial scale: 500 kW - 2 MW
ently depending on the turbine’s purpose. Typical
sizes in the three ranges available in the US are: • Usually fed into the grid, not sized to a single
Vocabulary p. 2 load
Residential: below 30 kW
• Choose a size based on electrical load • Diameter: 47 - 90 m (155 - 300 ft)
Power & Energy p. 3
• Diameter: 1 - 13 m (4 - 43 ft) • Height: 50 - 80 m (164 - 262 ft)
Sources for Teachers & p. 4 • Height: 18 - 37 m (60 - 120 ft) • Example: 4,300,000 kWh/year
Kids For comparison, an average Massachusetts house-
• Example: 21,000 kWh/year
hold uses 7,200 kWh/year
Nearby Wind p. 4 Medium: 30 - 500 kW
Example annual production is for comparison only. Based on sea-
Installations • May be sized to a load. Typically used when level mean winds of 7m/s (15.6 mph); manufacturer’s data for the
For More Info p. 4 there is a large electrical load. following turbines: Residential: Bergey XL-S (7.5kW); Medium:
Fuhrländer FL 250 (250 kW); Commercial: GE 1.5 SL (1500 kW) .
Pa g e 2 Community Wind Power Fact Sheet #1

T h e Vo c a b u l a r y o f W i n d Po w e r
Turbine: a turbine is a device that converts the Up-wind turbines: Modern commercial tur-
kinetic energy of a moving fluid into rota- bines yaw themselves so the rotor is facing
tional energy (engineers call both liquids and into the wind, i.e. upwind of the tower.
gases “fluids” – i.e. things that flow). A Cut-in speed: the wind speed at which a wind
wind turbine’s blades use aerodynamic lift turbine begins to generate electricity. Typi-
and drag to capture some of the wind’s en- cally 4 m/s (9 mph) for commercial wind
ergy and turn the generator’s shaft. turbines.
The main parts of a typical wind turbine are: Cut-out wind speed: the
- Rotor: a wind tur- high wind speed at which
bine’s blades and the turbine must shut
the hub to which down and turn perpen-
they attach form dicular to the wind to
the rotor. protect itself from being
- Nacelle: the frame overpowered. Typically
and housing at the 25 m/s (56 mph)
top of the tower. It Variable-speed turbines:
protects the gear- Some turbines incorpo-
box and the gen- rate power electronics
erator from that allow them to opti-
weather, and helps mize their power output
control the me- by varying their speed,
chanical noise for instance, from 10 to
level. 20 rpm. Other types vary
-Tower: a steel struc- their speed little or not at
ture, typically all.
tubular, with a Variable blade pitch:
ladder up the in- many turbines can change
side for mainte- the angle of their blades
nance access. to optimize performance.
-Base or foundation: Horizontal axis: All com-
made of concrete mercial-scale turbines

Diagram courtesy of James Rowe

reinforced with today have the rotor turn
steel bars. Typi- around a horizontal axis.
cally either a shal- Historically, vertical axis
low flat disk or a turbines have been tested,
deeper cylinder. such as the “Darrieus”
egg-beater design, but
have not been as efficient
Other useful terms are:
or able to survive high winds.
Yaw: commercial-scale turbines have a motor
Penetration: The amount of wind energy in a
to yaw, or turn the rotor to face into the
given area of the grid, as a percentage of
wind. At high wind-speeds, they yaw out of
total production. In the US, wind penetration
the wind to protect themselves.
is under 1%. Northern Germany and parts of
Denmark have penetrations of around 20%
(2003 figures).
Renewable Energy Research Laboratory, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Wind Technology Today Pa g e 3

T h e Po w e r & E n e rg y i n W i n d
The Power in Wind The Power from a Wind Turbine
The first law of thermodynamics tells us that The power a turbine actually gets from the
energy can neither be created nor destroyed, wind is: Energy
but it can change forms. Anything that is in P = Cp ½ U A 3

motion – such as moving air – contains a form is the ability to change one-
of energy we refer You can see that we have added two things to
self or one's surroundings
to as kinetic en- the original equation of the power in the wind:
ergy. Slowing air Cp = the turbine’s power coefficient
down reduces its = eta = the turbine’s mechanical & elec-
kinetic energy and trical efficiencies.
that energy has to
go somewhere. Cp must be less than the Betz limit. In practice, Power
Wind turbines it varies with wind speed, turbulence and oper-
slow wind down and convert some of the en- ating characteristics; for example it could be is a rate of using or produc-
ergy to mechanical and electrical energy. around 44% for a commercial-scale turbine, in ing energy.
winds of 10 m/s. A typical overall efficiency,
Kinetic energy is: , would be in the range of 90%. Power = energy / time
2
KE = ½ mU To estimate the power output of a given com-
where m stands for mass (in kg) and U stands mercial turbine, we do not have to use the
for velocity (in m/s). This allows us to calcu- power equation; rather we use power curves
late the amount of power in moving air. The supplied by the manufacturer.
Units of Measure
power of the wind passing perpendicularly Wind Turbine Power Curve
through a circular area is: 1,600
A kilowatt-hour (kWh) is a
1,400
3 unit of Energy
P=½ U A 1,200
Power (kW)

1,000
Where: 800 A kilowatt (kW) is a unit of
600
P = the power of the wind (in Watts). Power. So are watts, mega-
400
watts, and horsepower.
= rho = the density of the air (in kg/m3) 200

(1.225 kg/m3 for dry air at sea level) -

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

U = the velocity of the wind measured in m/s Wind Speed (m/s)

A= r2 = the area swept by the circular

rotor, in square meters, and
= pi = 3.1416...
r = the radius (half the diameter) of the
rotor (in meters)
Betz’s Limit on what we can extract
A wind turbine slows air down, but it cannot
remove 100% of the air’s kinetic energy –
obviously the air cannot stop completely, or
else it would pile up behind the turbine. In
1919 German physicist Albert Betz figured
out that the upper limit to the amount of en-
ergy you can capture from the wind is 16/27
or about 59%. In practice, all real wind tur-
bines extract less than this hypothetical maxi-
mum.
Renewable Energy Research Laboratory, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
What does the power equation tell us?
Even though we do not use the power equation
to calculate power output of a particular tur-
bine, the power equation tells us useful infor-
mation about significant factors that determine
what we can get from a wind turbine:
U3 : The power available in the wind is propor-
tional to the cube of the wind speed. There
is much more energy in high-speed winds
than in slow winds.
A : Power is proportional to the swept area,
and to the square of the diameter. Dou-
bling the diameter quadruples the avail-
able power.
: Air density matters too. The lower density
of warmer air, and air at higher altitudes
somewhat reduces the power available in
the wind.
 Pa g e 4
Re n e w a b l e
E n e rg y
Re s e a rch
L a b o rat o r y
University of
Massachusetts at
Amherst
160 Governors Drive
Amherst, MA 01003
Phone: 413-545-4359
E-mail: rerl@ecs.umass.edu
www.ceere.org/rerl/
Mass. Technology Collaborative
Mass. Renewable Energy Trust
75 North Drive
Westborough, MA 01581
phone: 508-870-0312
www.mtpc.org/RenewableEnergy/
Fuhrländer FL 250, 29.5 m diameter, photos courtesy Lorax Energy
Community Wind Power Fact Sheet #1
S o u rc e s fo r Te a ch e rs & K i d s
Spirit Lake, Iowa, has 2 wind turbines on their Scholastic books offers wind energy activities for
school grounds. The schools use the generators young children: place.scholastic.com/
in their curricula: www.spirit-lake.k12.ia.us/dist/ MAGICSCHOOLBUS/games/teacher/energy/
wind/index2.htm
This website, www.zilkha.com/
The Danish Wind Industry Association includes a forteacherskidsconsumers.asp, includes introduc-
section for kids: www.windpower.org/en/kids/ tions to wind energy on various levels.
index.htm
See RERL’s website, www.ceere.org/rerl/
GE has curricula, as well as a kids’ link page: rerl_links.html, for a more complete list of
www.gepower.com/businesses/ge_wind_energy/en/ teacher resources.
kids_teachers/index.htm
N e a r b y W i n d I n s t a l l at i o n s
A field trip to an installation is one of the best in- ▪ Madison, NY, 11.5 MW, www.atlantic-
troductions to modern wind power. renewable.com/Madison.htm
▪ Hull, MA, 660 kW turbine at the high school, ▪ Harbec Plastics, Ontario, NY, 250 kW turbine
accessible any time. www.hullwind.org
▪ Fenner project in Madison County, NY, 30 MW,
▪ Searsburg, VT, tours in summer, (802)-244-7522 www.fennerwind.com & www.madisontourism.com
www.northeastwind.com/
Fo r M o re I n f o r m at i o n
Wind Energy Explained: Theory, Design and Ap-
plication, Manwell, McGowan, & Rogers,
Wiley, 2002
• RERL’s website: www.ceere.org/rerl/ includes
this and other fact sheets
• The Danish Wind Industry Association’s website
has thorough and very accessible technical in-
formation: www.windpower.org
• American Wind Energy Association:
www.awea.org
• Renewable Energy Policy Project: www.repp.org/
articles/static/1/binaries/wind_online_final.pdf
• Case studies of community wind:
www.greenpowergovs.org/wind/Case%
20Studies.html
• The Database of State Incentives for Renewable
Energy (DSIRE) has a thorough list of Massa-
chusetts incentives for wind power:
www.dsireusa.org/
Community-owned wind turbine in Spirit
Lake, IA
Renewable Energy Research Laboratory, University of Massachusetts at Amherst