Full Title: Renewable Energy Technologies: Cost Analysis Series: Wind Power
Author(s): International Renewable Energy Agency
Publisher(s): International Renewable Energy Agency
Publication Date: June 1, 2012
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
Wind power technologies transform the kinetic energy of the wind into useful mechanical power. The kinetic energy of the air flow provides the motive force that turns the wind turbine blades that, via a drive shaft, provide the mechanical energy to power the generator in the wind turbine.
Wind and hydro power have been used by man since antiquity and they are the oldest large-scale source of power that has been used by mankind. However, the invention of the steam engine and its wide spread deployment in the nineteenth century allowed the industrial revolution to occur by providing cheap, on- demand mechanical and then electrical energy, with the possibility of taking advantage of the waste heat produced as well. Their low cost and the fact they did not depend on fickle winds or need to be located next to a convenient water source allowed the great leap in productivity and incomes that stemmed from the Industrial Revolution. Their success saw the importance of wind energy decline dramatically, particularly in the twentieth century.