Wind Energy: Technologies and Trends in Wind Power Plants Development

摘要

The development of technologically and cost effective solutions for the wind energy conversion into electrical energy has been one of the greatest technical challenges in the last decades. The idea of using wind energy for the generation of electricity could rightly be regarded as the logical continuation of its utilization for centuries as the driving power for various types of equipment, among which wind mills undoubtedly have greatest popularity. Despite the relatively short history of wind plants - the first modern wind turbine was set to work in the 80ties of the last century, today wind farms are a typical elements of the landscape of many European countries. An evidence of the wind plant technical development during the years is their output power increase by hundreds of times in comparison with the first turbine models. The designs of the 80-ties had power between 20 to 60 kW and a rotor diameter less than 20 m. Modern solutions achieve an output power of 5000 kW at a rotor diameter of 100m.