What is a Wind Turbine? How They Work
Wind energy is one of the most popular types of renewable energy being explored. It has huge potential to fulfill our future power requirements. A wind turbine is the device that converts wind energy directly to the electrical energy. When a large number of wind turbines are installed in one area it is called as wind farm, which can also be considered a wind power plant. Learn a little bit more about how wind turbines work in this article.
Parts of Wind Turbine and its Working
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Fan blades: The wind turbines comprises of the large fan blades which are connected to the hub.
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Shaft: The hub is mounted on the shaft. When the atmospheric wind blows over the fan blades they start rotating, due to this the shaft also starts rotating. If the wind blows very fast the brakes are applied to control the speed of rotation of fan blades and the shaft.
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Transmission gearbox: The speed of rotation of the shaft is very slow and it is not sufficient to produce the electricity. To increase the output speed the shaft is connected to the gear box.
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Output from the gearbox: The input is given to large gear of the gearbox rotating at slow speed and output is obtained from the small gear hence the speed of the output shaft increases.
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Electricity from the generator: The high speed output shaft from the gearbox is connected to the generator and it rotates inside the generator. It is here that the electricity is produced.
If you have installed the individual wind turbine for your domestic use, the generated electricity can be used directly for you home for lighting and appliances. Electricity can also be stored in the battery and it can be used whenever required. The individual wind turbines can also be installed at the remote places to fulfill the power requirements of the local areas where there is no other source of electricity.
For the commercial purposes large numbers of wind turbines are installed in the wind farm or wind power plant. At wind farms, power generated from all the individual wind turbines is collected and the wind farm can be connected to the national grid.
