Renewable Energy Wind - On the Effect of Offshore Wind Farms on the Atmosphere and Ocean Dynamics - page 6

Chapter 2
Renewable Energy Wind

This topic deals with the current most important and effective renewable energy,
the wind energy. Countries all over the world want to place wind turbines into
nature for producing

In the last decades, renewable energies were
fixed in our society, aiming on protecting resources and providing a new greener
and, hence, more healthful life. Common press coverage delivers information on
the status and development in this field. Therefore, this chapter gives an insight into
the renewable wind energy and its current state and technique. Assuming the crucial
point that this topic concentrates on offshore wind farms, this chapter finishes with a
description of Germany

green energy.

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s wind farming in the North Sea, including a description of
the first German test wind farm, called alpha ventus , and a possible future offshore
expansion.

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2.1 Utilization of Wind Energy: Historical and Technical
Background

Transforming wind power into mainly mechanical energy has been established in
our civilization since centuries ago. A nice overview of the history of wind turbine
is given by Hau ( 2008 ).
The first historical source of a windmill s existence dates back to 644 AD and

describes a windmill with vertical rotation axes placed in the Persian-Afghan
border district and used for grinding grain. Across the centuries, references arise
in China of windmills that were used to drain paddy fields. Windmills with a
horizontal axis of rotation were developed in Europe, may independently of the
construction of vertical-axis windmills

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in the Normandy. Over the centuries,
windmills have been technically improved and have spread over Europe and
Russia. So various types of windmills arise—the ancestors of today

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s wind turbines.
Windmills that are similar to the turbines of today were developed in the nineteenth

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