A typical wind farm generator is generally a very large structure. This is the reason why they are usually installed in a large area as far away from towns and cities as is possible. When the blades are turning they usually do produce some noise, it sounds more like a hissing sound. This gets louder as the blades rotate faster.
These wind farm turbines can produce as much as 96 Megawatts per turbine and depending on the location, they can be spread out to cover a large area. The towers themselves can be as high as 80 meters (about 240 feet). This can be equated to the size of a twenty storey building. Each of the three blades will be about 45 meters in length which is more than half the height from the ground.
Setting up a wind farm is a very expensive venture. For example a 32 wind turbine farm in Canada just outside of Moncton, New Brunswick cost more than 170 million dollars. This was the first commercial wind farm set up in July of 2009 in this province. It is estimated that this project alone will generate over 280, 000 Mega Watts every single year. That is enough electricity to power 17,000 homes for a period of one year.
So as you can imagine, one wind farm generator can be very expensive to set up. However it pays of in the long run because wind is a renewable energy. There will be more costs as far as maintaining the equipment is concerned but that is nothing compared to the long term benefits of setting up a wind farm. It is therefore sad to hear that some communities are fighting their governments and trying to prevent them from setting up these farms.
Siemens 3-MW Direct Drive Wind Farm Generator
SIEMENS Direct Drive Wind Turbine goes back to the basics of wind turbines. It is based on the discovery in 1820 that when you move an magnet over an electric coil you will generate energy. It is still prototype though, that looks at how wind power can become more efficient in the years to come.
It uses a direct drive generator which eliminates the gearbox at the same time fewer parts are used to build it, this allows for less hassles when it comes to maintenance. This is new technology in the wind industry and the wind technicians have to be retrained to work with this type of wind farm generator. This ultimately reduces the cost of running wind farms as well as the difficulty that are associated with the more commonly used turbines of our day.
Siemens took on the huge task of creating a gearless machine that does not cost more than the current turbines and also does not weigh more than them. They expect the demand for this turbine to be far more than their ability to manufacture the machine. Even though there are other direct drive turbines already on the market Siemens has really worked hard on designing one that can compete with the current market. Their goal now is to build bigger turbines with even lesser parts. Since they already have the technology available they are sure that this is very achievable.
Enercon E-126 Wind Farm Generator
The Enercon E-126 is more commonly referred to as the world’s largest wind turbine. It has an output of over 6000KW and is the first turbine that has six 6MW rated power. The height of its hub is 135m (450 ft) and the diameter of the wind blades is 126m (413ft). This wind turbine was remodeled from the the Enercon E-112 that produced a maximum output of 4500 KW and had a wind blade diameter of 114m.
This turbine has a simple concepts built into it. For one it is has no gears in it. It also allows for different speeds and each of the blades can be adjusted separately. The rotor is an upward rotor that has the ability to control the pitch. The three blades are made from reinforced fiber glass plastics (GPR) and they spin clockwise at a rate which varies from 5 to 11 revolutions per minute. They have incorporated the Enercon single blade pitch system. This allows for each blade to have its own independent pitch system plus an emergency power supply.
Up to May 2012 only 32 of these gigantic turbines have been installed worldwide. However in early 2013 these wind turbines will be installed at a wind farm in Denmark to create the largest wind farm in the world. They plan on installing 36 of these beasts on that one Windpark Noordoostpolder wind farm near Urk. They have estimated that each one of these wind farm generators will generate up to 22 million KWh of wind power energy every single year from average winds of just over 9 m/s.