Wind Energy

IEA study underlines essential role for wind energy in combating climate change:

Each County status on Wind energy -- click on Region to see each country installed capacity, future, and government incentives ( and strings ).
Global Wind 2007 report -- click on each link for details
Top 10 installed capacity to date , year 2007

Annual Capacity in 2012 - see Asia it will be almost half/half china and India


6 June 2008. The Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) welcomed a new study released today by the International Energy Agency (IEA), which shows that renewable energy, and particularly wind energy, must dominate the electricity generation sector in a sustainable energy future.

“For the first time, the IEA has clearly acknowledged that wind power is now a mainstream energy technology, and the central role it must play in combating climate change”, said Steve Sawyer, GWEC’s Secretary General.

The BLUE scenario forecasts that wind energy will produce over 5,000 TWh of electricity per year by 2050, accounting for up to 17% of global power production. Over one third of the resulting CO2 savings will be achieved in China and India.
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IN US
It's worth stating what the PTC (Production Tax Credit) is: 1.5 cents/kWh for the first 10 years of operation.
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WIND ENERGY BASICS

Example: A 10-kW wind turbine can generate about 10,000 kWh annually at a site with wind speeds averaging 12 miles per hour, or about enough to power a typical household. A 5-MW turbine can produce more than 15 million kWh in a year--enough to power more than 1, 400 households.
asr: 5 MW -> 5000 KW -> generates ( x 1000 x 2.8 ) 15,000,000 KWhours
- like operating 1000 hours in a year that is 3 hours/day x 365 days
- since high capacity 5-MW have big genrator they generate x 2.8 than small geneator , still operating 3 hours/day
The average U.S. household consumes about 10,000 kWh of electricity each year.


A 250-kW turbine installed at the elementary school in Spirit Lake, Iowa, provides an average of 350,000 kWh of electricity per year

An average U.S. household uses about 10,655 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity each year. One megawatt of wind energy can generate from 2.4 to more than 3 million kWh annually.
( asr: 1 MW -> 1000 KW -> generatges 1000 hours/year x 2.5 -> 2,500,000 KWh )
Therefore, a megawatt of wind generates about as much electricity as 225 to 300 households use.

Generally, an annual average wind speed greater than four meters per second (m/s) (9 mph) is required for small wind electric turbines (less wind is required for water-pumping operations). Utility-scale wind power plants require minimum average wind speeds of 6 m/s (13 mph )

The power available in the wind is proportional to the cube of its speed, which means that doubling the wind speed increases the available power by a factor of eight. Thus, a turbine operating at a site with an average wind speed of 12 mph could in theory generate about 33% more electricity than one at an 11-mph site, because the cube of 12 (1,768) is 33% larger than the cube of 11 (1,331). (In the real world, the turbine will not produce quite that much more electricity, but it will still generate much more than the 9% difference in wind speed.) The important thing to understand is that what seems like a small difference in wind speed can mean a large difference in available energy and in electricity produced, and therefore, a large difference in the cost of the electricity generated. Also, there is little energy to be harvested at very low wind speeds (6-mph winds contain less than one-eighth the energy of 12-mph winds).
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Mesa Power LLP, a company created by T. Boone Pickens, has placed an order with General Electric to purchase 667, 1.5 megawatt wind turbines for the worlds largest wind farm, capable of generating 1,000 megawatts, nameplate, of electricity, enough to power more than 300,000 average U.S. homes
( asr: 1000 MW -> 300,000 homes like 1 MW -> 300 homes
- each home annual avg: 10,000 KWh , that is 1000 KW hours /month -> 30 Kwh /day)

When all the phases of the project are completed it will become the world's largest wind energy project, with more than 4,000 megawatts, nameplate, of installed capacity. When completed, projected to be in 2014, the wind farm will be five times as big as the nation's current largest wind power project, now producing 736 megawatts

Pickens said he expects that first phase of the project will cost about $2 billion. When complete, the Pampa Wind Project will cover some 400,000 acres in the Texas Panhandle


PTC
It's worth stating what the PTC (Production Tax Credit) is: 1.5 cents/kWh for the first 10 years of operation.