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| American windmill |
modern equivalent - a wind turbine - can use the wind's energy to generate electricity.
Wind turbines, like windmills, are mounted on a tower to capture the most energy. At 100 feet (30
meters) or more aboveground, they can take advantage of the faster and less turbulent wind.
Turbines catch the wind's energy with their propeller-like blades. Usually, two or three blades are
mounted on a shaft to form a rotor.
A blade acts much like an airplane wing. When the wind blows, a pocket of low-pressure air forms
on the downwind side of the blade. The low-pressure air pocket then pulls the blade toward it,
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| Dutch windmill |
causing the rotor to turn. This is called lift. The force of the lift is actually much stronger than the
wind's force against the front side of the blade, which is called drag. The combination of lift and drag
causes the rotor to spin like a propeller, and the turning shaft spins a generator to make electricity.
Wind turbines can be used as stand-alone applications, or they can be connected to a utility power
grid or even combined with a photovoltaic (solar cell) system. For utility-scale sources of wind
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| Wind farm |
electricity providers today use wind plants to supply power to their customers.
Stand-alone wind turbines are typically used for water pumping or communications. However,
homeowners, farmers, and ranchers in windy areas can also use wind turbines as a way to cut their
electric bills.Small wind systems also have potential as distributed energy resources. Distributed energy
resources refer to a variety of small, modular power-generating technologies that can be combined
to improve the operation of the electricity delivery system.Wind farm Dutch windmill American windmill
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