windpower.org graph of wind at 4X

Wind Basics

In the case of the wind turbine we use the energy from braking the wind, and if we double the wind speed, we get twice as many slices of wind moving through the rotor every second, and each of those slices contains four times as much energy, as we learned from the example of braking a car.

The graph shows that at a wind speed of 8 metres per second we get a power (amount of energy per second) of 314 Watts per square metre exposed to the wind (the wind is coming from a direction perpendicular to the swept rotor area).

At 16 m/s we get eight times as much power, i.e. 2509 W/m 2 . The table in the Reference Manual section gives you the power per square metre exposed to the wind for different wind speeds. 

 


It goes on from here of course. We’ll close with the Table of Contents:

Guided tour

 

 

 

Wind

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whence wind?

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Coriolis force

 

 

 

 

 

 

Global winds

 

 

 

 

 

 

Geostrophic wind

 

 

 

 

 

 

Local winds

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mountain winds

 

 

 

 

 

 

Energy in the wind

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wind deflection

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wind speeds & energy

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anemometers

 

 

 

 

 

 

Measurement in practice

 

 

 

 

 

 

The wind rose

 

 

 

 

 

 

Draw a wind rose

 

 

 

Turbine siting

 

 

 

Energy output

 

 

 

How does it work?

 

 

 

Generators

 

 

 

Turbine design

 

 

 

Manufacturing

 

 

 

R & D

 

   

Electrical grid

 

 

 

Environment

     

Economics

 

 

 

History of wind energy

     

Wind energy manual

 

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