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Wind Energy: How It Works
How Wind Turbines Work Turbine Components Tower Typically made from tubular steel and includes stairs to the nacelle inside the tower. Some towers are now using composite materials instead of steel, however the vast majority are still steel. While there are no set standards for tower height, they typically range from 0.8x to 1.2x the diameter of the turbine blades. Nacelle A fiberglass composite shell that stores the inner workings of the turbine, most notably the generator, gearbox, hydraulic system and yaw drive.  Blades Three blades are used in all commercial turbines. Most are made from a fiber glass composite, however those used on turbines at/above 3.0MW use a carbon fiber composite due to its greater strength and stiffness properties. Energy Generation Wind turbines generate energy by turning the kinetic energy of the wind into electricity. As the blades spin the drive shaft turns at varying speeds. The rpm of the shaft is too low to generate electricity so a gearbox is used to increase the rpm to roughly 1500 rpm. The high speed shaft on the back of the gearbox drives the asynchronous generator behind the blades creates electricity in alternating current (AC) form. Energy Transmission The energy created from the wind turbine is direct current (DC) that needs to move through an inverter. The inverter chops the current to transform it to alternating current (AC) to meet grid frequency (60Hz in US). The yaw drive turns the nacelle into the wind to provide the turbine with the greatest blade speeds. (a small turbine uses a wind vane) |
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