How Does Wind Power Work?

Ever wondered to yourself how does wind power work?

Well here's a really great video clip from Energy 101 about wind wind turbines which explains exactly how does wind power work

This is an exact transcript of the narration behind the video...

"We've all seen those creaky old windmills on farms and although they may seem about as low tech as you can get, those old windmills are the predecessors for new modern wind turbines that generate electricity.

The same wind that used to pump water for cattle is now turning giant wind turbines to power cities and homes.

Have a look at this wind farm in the California dessert, a hot dessert next to tall mountains, an ideal place for a lot of wind. Here's another one in the windy prairies of Wyoming. Now today's wind turbines are much more complicated machines than the old prairie windmills but the principle is the same, both capture the winds energy.

Ok, here's how it works. First a wind turbine blade works sort of like an airplane wing blowing air passes around both sides of the blade, the shape of the blade causes the air pressure to be uneven. higher on one side of the blade and lower on the other and that what makes it spin. the uneven pressure causes the blades to spin around the centre of the turbine. on the top there's a weather vane that's connected to a computer, to keep the turbine turned in to the wind so it captures the most energy.

Now the blades are attached to a shaft which only turns about 18 revolutions a minute and that's not nearly fast enough to generate electricity by itself so the rotor shaft spins a series of gears that increase the rotation up to about 1800 revolutions per minute and at that speed the generator can produce a lot of electricity.

So why are wind turbines so tall?

The higher up you go the windier it is, more wind naturally means more electricity and in many cases larger wind turbines can also capture wind energy more efficiently. The blades can sweep a circle in the sky as long as a football field.

Now what's really cool is that even a small wind farm like this one in Wyoming can generate enough electricity to power more than 9,000 homes and larger farms can provide much more clean energy for our homes and businesses."

So if you've ever seen wind turbines along the roadside or in small collections on wind farms and wondered to yourself how does wind power work, well now you know the answer.