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Wind Power GlossaryAn explanation of technical terms used in wind power and, more specifically, as used in these pagesCreated about 2008/03/01, modified 2010/05/14 Contact: email daveclarkecb@yahoo.com Also see Energy Units, an explanation of some energy units, definitions, and conversions. |
Wind power pages...Wind power in AustraliaWind farms in NSW Wind farms in Qld Wind farms in SA Wind farms in Victoria Wind farms in Tasmania Wind farms in WA Wind power potential in Oz Wind power problems Wind farm photo pages...Canunda/Lake BonneyHallett Mount Millar Snowtown Starfish Hill Victoria Wattle Point |
| Some of these definitions were taken from ReNew, the quarterly journal of the Alternative Technology Association |
| 16 point compass rose | To describe the location of wind farms, in relation to well known
towns and cities, I have used the 16 point compass rose.
In this system, north-east (NE) is the direction half way between north
and east (45° 'true') and nor-nor-east (NNE) is the direction half
way between north and north-east (22.5° true), etc. Puting it another way, starting at north and moving clockwise we have: N, NNE, NE, ENE, E, ESE, SE, SSE, S, SSW, SW, WSW, W, WNW, NW, NNW, and back to N. | |
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| AEMO | The Australian Energy Market Operator "delivers an array of gas and electricity market, operational, development and planning functions". AEMO replaced NEMMCO. | |
| Amp or Ampere | The unit of measurement of electrical current; the symbol is A or I. | |
| Anemometer | A device used to measure wind speed | |
| Annual production | As used in these pages, the annual average energy production of a particular wind farm. Generally measured in GWhr. | |
| Availability | The percentage of time that the particular wind farm, or wind turbine, is in an operational condition. | |
| Axial-flow turbine | A turbine in which the air moves in the direction of the axis of rotation of the turbine. All utility scale wind turbines in Australia are axial flow. | |
| Base load | The exact meaning of Base-load seems ill-defined.
The term base-load power was used to mean the load that was always present
and could be supplied by power that comes from generators
such as coal-fired stations, which can only very slowly vary their
generation, and therefore were suited to running night and day at a steady
rate.
It seems to have come to mean the sum of all those loads on the electricity
grid when the time-dependent loads are no longer present.
It roughly corresponds to the demand that is always present in a particular
power grid; equal to the demand from around 11pm to around 6am.
It has often been said that wind power cannot provide base-load power. What seems to be meant by this is that wind power is not available on demand; which is true. See also Timing of wind power generation. | |
| Betz Limit | The maximum theoretical power that can be captured by a wind turbine from the wind. Equal to 59.3% of the wind energy. | |
| Blade |
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| Capacity factor | The percentage of potential generation that is actually achieved. (See also Wind is intermittent.) For example; A wind farm consisting of ten 2 MW turbines could theoretically generate 175 200 MWhr of electricity per year (10×2×24×365=175 200) if all the turbines were to work at 100% of their capacity 100% of the time. In practice turbines do not work at full capacity all the time and such a wind farm in Australia would probably generate around 60 000MWhr per year (a capacity factor of 34%). See also notes on actual capacity factors in Australian wind farms. | |
| Cross-flow turbine | A turbine where the flow of air is at right angles to the axis of rotation of the turbine | |
| Current | The rate at which electricity flows in a conductor. Analogous to the volume of water flowing through a pipe. Measured in Amperes, or Amps | |
| Darrius rotor or turbine | A form of vertical-axis wind turbine that uses thin blades | |
| DEWHA | Commonwealth Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts | |
| Diameter | When applied to a wind turbine it is the diameter of the area swept by the turbine blades: the diameter of the Swept area. The blade length will be less than half of the diameter. | |
| Efficiency of wind turbines | The Betz Limit gives a theoretical maximum to wind turbine efficency of 59.3%. The efficiency of wind turbines varies greatly – must vary greatly – depending on wind speed; it is discussed in more depth elsewhere on these pages. | |
| Energy | Compare to Power. Energy in physics is the capacity for doing work. In the SI metric units it is measured in Watt-hours (Whr), kiloWatt-hour (kWhr), etc. Also see Units of energy. Many people, even in the energy business, confuse power and energy. | |
| EPC | Engineering, Procurement and Construction; refers to the major sections in the setting-up of a wind farm. | |
| ESIPC (SA) | The Electricity Supply Industry Planning Council has been established to monitor the electricity supply industry in South Australia. At 1 July 2009 ESIPC became a part of AEMO. | |
| Exawatt-hour, EWhr | A unit of energy equal to one billion billion (1018) Watt-hours. Also see Metric system multipliers. | |
| Expected life | A wind turbine and a wind farm has a limited life expectancy. Parts wear out and, in a fast developing field such as wind power, machinery becomes out-dated. Underground electrical cabelling deteriorates with time. Some parts can be replaced as they wear or fail, but there comes a time when the most economic option is to replace, or scrap, the whole wind farm. We in Australia must be careful that failed turbines never litter our ridge-lines. | |
| Furling | A method of preventing damage to horizontal-axis wind turbines by automatically turning them out of the wind using a spring-loaded tail or other device. Not used on utility-scale wind turbines. | |
| Greenhouse gas saving |
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| Gigawatt, GW | A unit of power equal to one billion (109) Watts. Also see Metric system multipliers. | |
| Gigawatt-hour, GWhr | A unit of energy equal to one billion (109) Watt-hours. Also see Metric system multipliers. | |
| HVDC | High voltage direct current is used to transmit large amounts of power over long distances; there are smaller power losses and the construction cost of a HVDC line is less than that of a more conventional high voltage alternating current line. HVDC could be used to advantage for some of the longer transmission lines in Australia, especially if full use it to be made of Australia's great wind power potential. Also see Wikipedia. | |
| Horizontal-axis turbine | The most common form of wind turbine, in which the axis is parallel to the direction of the wind. Another name for a axial-flow turbine. | |
| Hub | The section which connects the turbine blades to the main shaft. At construction it is usually attached to the blades at the base of the turbine tower and then the whole assembly is lifted in one piece. | |
| Infrasound | According to the International Electrotechnical Commission's (IEC's) IEC 1994, infrasound is: Acoustic oscillations whose frequency is below the low frequency limit of audible sound (about 16 Hz). However this definition is incomplete as infrasound at high enough levels is audible at frequencies below 16 Hz. (From AWEA & CWEA report into the health effects of wind turbine noise; see elsewhere.) | |
| Installed capacity | The amount of electricity that will be generated by a wind farm when all its turbines are generating at their full capacity. | |
| killowatt, kW | A unit of power equal to one thousand Watts. Also see Metric system multipliers. | |
| killowatt-hour, kWhr | A unit of energy equal to one thousand Watt-hours. Also see Metric system multipliers. | |
| Load factor | Same as Capacity factor. | |
| Latitude | Distance south of the equator expressed in degrees. In these pages I have used decimal degrees rather than minutes and seconds as fractions of degrees because I believe the latter to be archaic: as shillings and pence are archaic fractions of a pound (currency). | |
| Longitude | Distance east of the Prime Meridian expressed in degrees. See also latitude, above. | |
| Minimum operational wind speed |
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| Minimum wind speed for full output | The lightest wind sufficient for a particular turbine to produce its maximum rated electricity generation | |
| MRET | Mandatory Renewable Energy Target; I have discussed it elsewhere. | |
| Megawatt, MW | A unit of power equal to one million Watts. Also see Metric system multipliers. | |
| Megawatt-hour, MWhr | A unit of energy equal to one million Watt-hours. Also see Metric system multipliers. | |
| Nacelle | That part of the turbine that houses the gearbox (if any), electrical generator, cooling system etcetera, at the top of the tower. | |
| NEMMCO | The National Electricity Market Management Company is the market operator of the National Electricity Market (NEM) and the system operator of the national grid. Has been replaced by AEMO. | |
| Petawatt-hour, PWhr | A unit of energy equal to one million billion (1015) Watt-hours. Also see Metric system multipliers. | |
| Power | Compare to energy. Power is a flow of energy; an amount of energy per unit time. In the SI metric units, it is measured in Watts (W), kiloWatts (kW), etc. Also see Units of Power. Many people, even in the energy business, confuse power and energy. | |
| Power purchase agreement |
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| Productive wind speeds | That range of wind speeds that are useable by a particular wind turbine for electricity generation. The power available from wind is proportional to cube of the wind's speed: double the speed, eight times the energy. So as the speed of the wind falls the amount of energy that can be got from it falls very rapidly. On the other hand, as the wind speed rises, so the amount of energy in it rises very rapidly; very high wind speeds can overload a turbine. Productive wind speeds for a modern turbine might be from around 2.5m/sec to 35m/sec (9km/hr to 125km/hr). See also Survival wind speed | |
| Renewable energy | Energy that is produced from a renewable source, such as sunlight, flows of wind or water, or sustainably grown plants. | |
| Rotor | The blades and hub at the centre of the blades - the part that rotates in front of the Nacelle. | |
| Rotor diameter | The diameter of the circle swept-out by the tips of the turbine's blades. | |
| Savonius turbine or rotor | A type of vertical-axis turbine that uses half-drum shaped 'blades' to catch the wind and turn a shaft. Generally a low-speed turbine with high torque, usually used for water pumping. | |
| Shut down wind speed | The maximum wind speed at which a particular turbine can generate electricity. With higher wind speeds the turbine must be shut-down to avoid damage. | |
| SOO; Statement of opportunities, NEMMCO |
- electricity supply capacity; - demand-side participation (DSP); and - transmission network augmentation in suppport of NEM operations. The SOO incorporates the Annual National Transmission Statement (ANTS). The SOO is published each year in October and can be downloaded from the NEMMCO Net site. | |
| Spinning reserve | In order to assure electrical supply it is necessary to keep some generation plant (usually fossil-fuelled) running, but not generating, so that it will be able to be brought into production at short notice. (The need for spinning reserve would be greatly reduced by introducing Supply Dependent Load, which is discussed in my Sustainable Electricity page.) | |
| Survival wind speed | The maximum wind speed that a turbine is designed to withstand before sustaining damage. See also Productive wind speeds | |
| Swept circle and swept area | The circle through which the turbine blades rotate and the area of that circle. | |
| Terrawatt-hour, TWhr | A unit of energy. One TWhr is a million-million Watt-hours. | |
| Tip-speed ratio | The ratio of the blade tip speed to wind speed | |
| Turbine | A device that converts the energy in a stream of moving fluid into mechanical energy. | |
| Turbulance | Airflow that varies in speed and direction rapidly and violently that can cause damage to wind turbines. Often caused by objects such as trees or buildings. | |
| Vertical-axis turbine | A wind turbine with the axis or main shaft mounted vertically. This type of turbine does not have to turn to face the wind. Types include the Darrius and Savonius. | |
| Watt | The basic SI metric unit of power; equal to one Joule of work performed per second; also, in electricity, the power dissipated in an electrical conductor carrying one ampere current between points at one volt potential difference. Also see Units of power. | |
| Watt-hour, Whr | A unit of energy, generally electrical energy, equal to a flow of power of one Watt for a period of one hour. | |
| Wind farm | An integrated group of wind turbines that feed electricity into one or more electrical sub-stations and thence, usually, into the electricity grid. | |
| Wind turbine | A turbine designed to convert the energy in a stream of moving air into mechanical, and then electrical, energy. |
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