Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Summary of Wind Turbine Technology Developments
from 1988 to 2008
Energy production from wind power has evolved very rapidly over the past two de-
cades. Capital costs have plummeted, reliability has improved, and eficiency has dramati-
cally increased, resulting in a robust commercial product that is competitive with fossil-fuel
power generation systems. Investments in research and development projects as well as the
development of robust standard design criteria have helped to mitigate risk and attract market
capital for large wind power stations. High-quality products built to international standards
are now provided by every major turbine manufacturer. Complete wind power stations are
now being engineered to seamlessly interconnect with the electrical grid.
The importance of the role played by the IEC standards in the rapid development and
deployment of wind turbine technology cannot be overestimated. The IEC design standards
allow buyers of wind turbines to match the turbine design class to their speciic site wind en-
vironment. Testing standards provide protocols for performance, loads, noise, and acoustic
output to ensure that test results are comparable under a set of standard conditions. The IEC
61400-22 wind turbine certiication standard provides the buyer with a full system certiica-
tion process.
The COE metric remains the principal technology indicator, incorporating the key ele-
ments of capital cost, eficiency, reliability, and durability. The unsubsidized cost of wind-
generated electricity ranges from about 5.5 to 8.8 cents/kWh for projects completed in
2006.
The technology of wind turbines is now highly developed. Major technical break-
throughs in land-based technology are no longer needed for a broad geographic penetration
of wind power on the electric grid. Instead, incremental technology advances at research
laboratories such as the U.S. National Wind Technology Center shown in Figure 3-50 are
Figure 3-50. Aerial view of the National Wind Technology Center near Golden, Colo-
rado, where a wide variety of wind turbine technology research is conducted.
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