Donald Cooksey: NASA Wind Generation Project
(Page 9 of 9)
May/June 1976
By the Mother Earth News staff
CONTROLS
RELATED CONTENT
Rock Port, Mo., took advantage of the power generated from the nearby Loess Hills Wind Farm in a bi...
More than 100 schools in 30 states have installed wind generators, and many more are doing the rese...
This 1975 article on wind generators includes notes on firsthand experiences, thoughts on finding u...
Wind power has enormous potential, is the fastest growing form of electricity and creates no pollut...
The American Wind Energy Association is predicting a record-breaking year for wind power....
The WTG is designed to self-feather its blades whenever the air mass moving past the rotor is traveling at less than eight miles per hour. When the breeze reaches a velocity of eight mph, the blades are set to capture that energy and begin converting it into electricity . . . only a little at first, then more and more until—in an 18-mph wind—the plant is producing approximately 100 kilowatts of "juice".. If the wind's speed continues to increase, the rotor then automatically begins to feather itself so that the generator turns out the same 100 kw all the way up to an airspeed of 40 miles per hour. And at windspeeds of more than 40 mph, the blades really begin to feather themselves in earnest until, at 60 mph, the plant shuts down completely to protect itself from possible damage. Although all these actions will be taken automatically by built-in controls once the WTG is in full operation, the feathering of the blades is being controlled by an operator during the test program now being conducted on the windplant.
Also, during these initial tests, the alternator is being operated asynchronously with a load bank. Later, when the unit is "really" running, the WTG will synchronously feed its output into the local power grid.
Page:
<< Previous 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 | 9 |
