Effects of turbine technology and land use on wind power resource potential

Rinne, Erkka; Holttinen, Hannele; Kiviluoma, Juha; Rissanen, Simo

doi:10.1038/s41560-018-0137-9

Cited by 97 publications

(72 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Further upward scaling in turbine size is anticipated, but uncertainty remains on both the magnitude and relative focus (e.g., rotor vs. generator vs. tower) of that scaling (Wiser et al, 2016;Wood Mackenzie, 2018). Research demonstrates that taller towers and larger rotors can potentially enable economic wind development in lower wind-speed areas that have not seen much or any development to date (Burt et al, 2017;Capps et al, 2012;DOE, 2015a;Rinne et al, 2018). But in more-seasoned wind development areas with better wind resources, recent product offerings from the major turbine manufacturers, as well as various analyst projections, suggest that the next concerted move in turbine design will be toward higher-capacity turbines, whichgiven the current limits on blade length-will have higher, not lower, specific power ratings.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opportunities for and challenges to further reductions in the “specific power” rating of wind turbines installed in the United States

et al. 2020

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A wind turbine’s “specific power” rating relates its capacity to the swept area of its rotor in terms of Watt per square meter. For a given generator capacity, specific power declines as rotor size increases. In land-rich but capacity-constrained wind power markets, such as the United States, developers have an economic incentive to maximize megawatt-hours per constrained megawatt, and so have favored turbines with ever-lower specific power. To date, this trend toward lower specific power has pushed capacity factors higher while reducing the levelized cost of energy. We employ geospatial levelized cost of energy analysis across the United States to explore whether this trend is likely to continue. We find that under reasonable cost scenarios (i.e. presuming that logistical challenges from very large blades are surmountable), low-specific-power turbines could continue to be in demand going forward. Beyond levelized cost of energy, the boost in market value that low-specific-power turbines provide could become increasingly important as wind penetration grows.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opportunities for and challenges to further reductions in the “specific power” rating of wind turbines installed in the United States

et al. 2020

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“…At the end of 2017, though a total of 2840 MW of wind power were installed in AT according to the Austrian Wind Energy Association [57]—an increase of 23%. Fifth, technological developments and rotor growth will lead to improved wind turbines and to potential higher capacity densities [58, 59]. This will change the use of land suitable and potentially available for WPP.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Observation-based estimates of land availability for wind power: a case study for Czechia

2019

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BackgroundThe availability of land for the installation of wind power turbines is restricted by numerous factors. Besides climatic conditions, the deployment of wind energy is limited by technical, social, economic, and environmental factors. Typically, assessments of land availability for wind power use legal and technical criteria to estimate the potential for wind power expansion. In contrast, we use observed characteristics of wind power generation sites existing in Austria and Denmark to estimate its potential expansion in Czechia. We combined data on wind turbine locations with data on land use, wind speeds, human impact on land, and nature conservation areas.ResultsOur analysis shows that the density of wind power in Austria is variable, but higher on average (4.79 MW km−2) than in Denmark (1.76 MW km−2). Austrian wind turbines have been installed in areas where the human impact on land is mostly higher than the Austrian average, while in Denmark, no difference is observed. Regarding the land use composite, the share of agricultural land on sites with wind turbines is on average much higher (86%), while the share of forest is much lower (7%) in both countries. We identified a maximum potential area in Czechia of 543 km2 with Austrian and 421 km2 with Danish characteristics. When conservatively assuming observed historical power densities, this area translates to 2295 MW and 741 MW of installed wind power capacity, respectively. These results are a magnitude of order lower than the potentials found in existing studies. In a sensitivity analysis, we have examined that the availability of potential sites depends mainly on the population density, the human impact on land, prevailing wind speeds, and the height above sea level.ConclusionsWe estimated available land area for potential wind turbine installations in Czechia using our newly developed methodology based on observed site characteristics of today’s wind power infrastructure in Austria and Denmark. Available land area indicated possible overestimation of wind power capacities proposed in the recent studies on the renewable energy transition. Hence, more rigorous consideration of land availability is required for assessments of potential wind power expansion.

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“…Wind energy has played an essential role in global green energy since it is plentiful, renewable, and widespread. [1,2] Many large wind farms are established since the wind turbine technology has been extensively studied. The capacity installed worldwide is cumulative up to 591 GW by the end of 2018.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Energy Harvesting from Breeze Wind (0.7–6 m s⁻¹) Using Ultra‐Stretchable Triboelectric Nanogenerator

Ren

Wang

Liu

et al. 2020

Advanced Energy Materials

128

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Wind is one of the most important sources of green energy, but the current technology for harvesting wind energy is only effective when the wind speed is beyond 3.5–4.0 m s−1. This is mainly due to the limitation that the electromagnetic generator works best at high frequency. This means that light breezes cannot reach the wind velocity threshold of current wind turbines. Here, a high‐performance triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) for efficiently harvesting energy from an ambient gentle wind, especially for speeds below 3 m s−1 is reported, by taking advantage of the relative high efficiency of TENGs at low‐frequency. Attributed to the multiplied‐frequency vibration of ultra‐stretchable and perforated electrodes, an average output of 20 mW m−3 can be achieved with inlet wind speed of 0.7 m s−1, while an average energy conversion efficiency of 7.8% at wind speed of 2.5 m s−1 is reached. A self‐charging power package is developed and the applicability of the TENG in various light breezes is demonstrated. This work demonstrates the advantages of TENG technology for breeze energy exploitation and proposes an effective supplementary approach for current employed wind turbines and micro energy structure.

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Effects of turbine technology and land use on wind power resource potential

Cited by 97 publications

References 27 publications

Opportunities for and challenges to further reductions in the “specific power” rating of wind turbines installed in the United States

Opportunities for and challenges to further reductions in the “specific power” rating of wind turbines installed in the United States

Observation-based estimates of land availability for wind power: a case study for Czechia

Energy Harvesting from Breeze Wind (0.7–6 m s⁻¹) Using Ultra‐Stretchable Triboelectric Nanogenerator

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Effects of turbine technology and land use on wind power resource potential

Cited by 97 publications

References 27 publications

Opportunities for and challenges to further reductions in the “specific power” rating of wind turbines installed in the United States

Opportunities for and challenges to further reductions in the “specific power” rating of wind turbines installed in the United States

Observation-based estimates of land availability for wind power: a case study for Czechia

Energy Harvesting from Breeze Wind (0.7–6 m s−1) Using Ultra‐Stretchable Triboelectric Nanogenerator

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Energy Harvesting from Breeze Wind (0.7–6 m s⁻¹) Using Ultra‐Stretchable Triboelectric Nanogenerator