Wind Power

Wind turbines are machines that generate wind power through utilizing the wind and solar energy. The design of the wind turbine is responsible for creating electricity and listed in the paragraphs below are the various designs that are used to create windpower. 

A wind turbine consists of the tower and the propeller with the tower being a base and the propeller mounted on top. The height of the tower plays an important role in the amount of wind that reaches the propeller since more wind is available the higher the tower is. The wind power design for residential tower varies according to the manufacturer and model type but many wind turbines have a tower that’s height ranges from 80 – 120 feet.
 

The propeller also plays an important part in a wind turbine and the most crucial part of the propeller is the blades. Depending on the type of wind power design, the blades can be made of metal or wood. Listed below are the three types of blades that can be used in residential and commercial propellers.

·         Three blade or Danish design – The rotor is the part where the blade meets the axis and in the three blade design, the rotor is placed upwards to obtain maximum wind. Yaw motors and Yaw drives are used to move the blades in a down ward position. This design is the most popular design and is usually used as a reference for all wind turbine designs.

·         Two blade or teetering design – The two blade wind power design is beneficial to people who want to buy a wind turbine that weighs lesser and save costs on 1 rotor blade. The disadvantage of this wind power design is that in order to reach the same output the two blade design requires more wind velocity as compared to the three blade design. The teetering hub is hinged and the design is more complicated and additional shock absorbers are required to prevent the blades from hitting the tower.

·         One blade design – The one blade design is the cheapest yet hardest to find windpower design turbine in the market. The problems encountered are similar as mentioned in the two blade design model however the problems can be considerably severe in the one blade design. The noise level is higher in the one blade design and a counterweight also needs to be placed on the other side of the hub to balance the rotor. 

The use of wind power is growing rapidly due to the advances in wind power design.