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WINDMILL WIND AND SOLAR ENERGY UPGRADE:
Wind turbines work on a simple principle: instead of using electricity to make wind—like a fan—wind turbines use wind to make electricity. Wind turns the propeller-like blades of a turbine around a rotor, which spins a generator, which creates electricity.
Wind is a form of solar energy caused by a combination of three concurrent events:
- The sun unevenly heating the atmosphere
- Irregularities of the earth's surface
- The rotation of the earth.
Wind flow patterns and speeds vary greatly across the United States and are modified by bodies of water, vegetation, and differences in terrain. Humans use this wind flow, or motion energy, for many purposes: sailing, flying a kite, and even generating electricity.
The terms "wind energy" and "wind power" both describe the process by which the wind is used to generate mechanical power or electricity. This mechanical power can be used for specific tasks (such as grinding grain or pumping water) or a generator can convert this mechanical power into electricity.
A wind turbine turns wind energy into electricity using the aerodynamic force from the rotor blades, which work like an airplane wing or helicopter rotor blade. When wind flows across the blade, the air pressure on one side of the blade decreases. The difference in air pressure across the two sides of the blade creates both lift and drag. The force of the lift is stronger than the drag and this causes the rotor to spin. The rotor connects to the generator, either directly (if it’s a direct drive turbine) or through a shaft and a series of gears (a gearbox) that speed up the rotation and allow for a physically smaller generator. This translation of aerodynamic force to rotation of a generator creates electricity.
Types of Wind Turbines
The majority of wind turbines fall into two basic types:
HORIZONTAL-AXIS TURBINES
VERTICAL-AXIS TURBINES
Wind turbines can be built on land or offshore in large bodies of water like oceans and lakes. The U.S. Department of Energy is currently funding projects to facilitate offshore wind deployment in U.S. waters.
LAND-BASED WIND
OFFSHORE WIND
DISTRIBUTED WIND
Interested in wind energy? The Small Wind Guidebook helps homeowners, ranchers, and small businesses decide if wind energy can work for them.
More wind energy resources can be found at WINDExchange, which has lesson plans, websites, and videos for K-12 students, as well as information about the Wind for Schools Project and the Collegiate Wind Competition.
ENERGY 101: GENERATING CLEAN ELECTRICITY FROM THE WIND
This video highlights the basic principles at work in wind turbines and illustrates how the various components work to capture and convert wind energy to electricity. See the text version.
U.S. Department of Energy
Find out more about wind energy by visiting the Wind Energy Technologies Office web page or browsing the office's funded activities.
The Power of Wind
Wind turbines harness the wind—a clean, free, and widely available renewable energy source—to generate electric power.
The animation below is interactive. You can start and stop the turbine’s movement, hover over parts to see their description, and use the icons in the lower right corner of the animation to switch views.
A wind turbine turns wind energy into electricity using the aerodynamic force from the rotor blades, which work like an airplane wing or helicopter rotor blade. When wind flows across the blade, the air pressure on one side of the blade decreases. The difference in air pressure across the two sides of the blade creates both lift and drag. The force of the lift is stronger than the drag and this causes the rotor to spin. The rotor connects to the generator, either directly (if it’s a direct drive turbine) or through a shaft and a series of gears (a gearbox) that speed up the rotation and allow for a physically smaller generator. This translation of aerodynamic force to the rotation of a generator creates electricity.
THE PORTABLE WINDMILL WIND AND SOLAR ENERGY THAT MUST BE UPGRADED:
All its construction panels are made of solar panels to produce daytime solar energy.
The rotar blades are run by wind day and night.
The portable windmill connected to vehicles for transportation, the impact of wind by a speeding vehicle drives the rotar blades.
Small Wind Electric System Components
A wind electric system is made up of a wind turbine mounted on a tower to provide better access to stronger winds. In addition to the turbine and tower, small wind electric systems also require balance-of-system components.
Turbines
Most small wind turbines manufactured today are horizontal-axis, upwind machines that have two or three blades. These blades are usually made of a composite material, such as fiberglass.
The turbine's frame is the structure onto which the rotor, generator, and tail are attached. The amount of energy a turbine will produce is determined primarily by the diameter of its rotor. The diameter of the rotor defines its "swept area," or the quantity of wind intercepted by the turbine. The tail keeps the turbine facing into the wind.
Towers
Because wind speeds increase with height, a small wind turbine is mounted on a tower. In general, the higher the tower, the more power the wind system can produce.
Most turbine manufacturers provide wind energy system packages that include towers. There are two basic types of towers: self-supporting (free-standing) and guyed (supported with wires). There are also tilt-down versions of each tower type.
While tilt-down towers are more expensive, they offer an easy way to perform maintenance. Tilt-down towers can also be lowered to the ground during hazardous weather such as hurricanes.
Balance of System Components
The balance-of-system parts you'll need for a small wind electric system -- those in addition to the wind turbine and the tower -- will depend on your application. For example, the parts required for a water pumping system will be much different from what you need for a residential application.
The balance-of-system parts required will also depend on whether your system is grid-connected, stand-alone, or hybrid.
Manufacturers and installers can provide you with a system package that includes all the parts you need for your particular application. For a residential grid-connected application, the balance-of-system parts may include the following:
- A controller
- Storage batteries
- An inverter (power conditioning unit)
- Wiring
- Electrical disconnect switch
- Grounding system
- Foundation for the tower.
Wind power is the fastest growing source of energy in the world -- efficient, cost effective, and non-polluting.
This is a minor traditional and portable windmill energy device that is able to capture solar and wind energy from a speeding vehicle and its solar panels to transfer into storage massive energy into the major batteries.
Such a WINDMILL, WIND AND SOLAR ENERGY UPGRADE system should work in synchronization with A plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (also called a PHEV). This is a vehicle with plug-in capability, and it can use energy for driving from either its battery or liquid fuel(plug in hybrid vehicle). As the windmill hits the front winds of a speeding vehicle such energy is indeed great.
OFFICE OF ELECTRICITY
U.S. Department of Energy Opportunity: Rapid Operational Validation Initiative for Flow Batteries.
1st September, 2022
By WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. A
Office of Electricity U.S. Department of Energy Opportunity: Rapid Operational Validation Initiative for Flow Batteries
Lab call to address energy storage data needs to accelerate testing and validation of new technologies
Department of Energy (DOE) is issuing a lab call to develop the Rapid Operational Validation Initiative (ROVI), which will address critical gaps in data needs to evaluate energy storage, such as the lack of access to large and uniform sets of performance data that are necessary to accelerate the pace at which technology development can occur.
ROVI will create a data collection and analysis framework to identify the fundamental data needs for different Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES) technologies and then develop protocols to ensure that data can be collected and stored in a standardized format. In addition, ROVI will provide an opportunity for project performers to collect data from real systems and leverage data science methods, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, to extract valuable insights about the performance of these LDES technologies. ROVI’s goal is to use data-driven insights to develop accelerated testing and validation methods for new technologies that will yield 15+ years of investment-grade performance projections with only one year or less of data required.
This lab call is the first step to implement the ROVI activity outlined in the DOE FY22 Budget Request for the Energy Storage Grand Challenge. ROVI will also carry out the testing and validation requirements in the Energy Storage System Research, Development, and Deployment Program of the Energy Act of 2020. Finally, ROVI will help fulfill the statutorily required performance reporting of the grid-scale long-duration energy storage demonstration programs as part of President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
The DOE’s Office of Electricity is issuing this lab call funding opportunity to specifically address flow battery technologies. Although only National Labs are eligible to be the primary funding recipient for this opportunity, they are permitted to partner with non-lab organizations to ensure necessary expertise and capabilities are available. Click here to read the lab call.
Non-lab organizations interested in potential partnering opportunities must email their information to esgc@hq.doe.gov in the format shown in this excel spreadsheet file by October 14, 2022 at 11:59 pm ET.
UETCL engineers disassemble a vandalized tower line inside Kakira Sugar Plantation in Jinja District on October 31. PHOTO/FILE
Why Uganda’s national electricity grid remains powerless.
26 Saturday, November, 2022
By Robert Madoi and Tobbias Jolly Owiny
The Uganda Parliament’s Committee on National Economy this week gave the green light to a project aimed at increasing access to electricity in the country.
The Electricity Access Scale-Up Project will run under the auspices of the World Bank Group’s International Development Association at a tune of a little over Shs2 trillion.
In a report on the same, the parliamentary committee noted that the loan will help government achieve its medium-term electrification targets captured in the Electricity Connections Policy (ECP) 2018-2027.
With a per capita electricity consumption of 215 kilowatt/hour (kWh) as of 2018, Uganda remains an electricity backwater when juxtaposed with the sub-Saharan (552kWh) and global (2,975kWh) averages. In an October 14 brief to the House, the Finance ministry attributed the unflattering depiction to “high electricity tariffs, high connection costs, high energy losses, limited investments and low power supply quality and reliability.”
The ministry also revealed in the aforesaid brief that the rapid scale-up of electricity connections will see “at least 1.2 million potential customers … connected to the grid.” This, it added, will ultimately “increase the proportion of the population with access to electricity from 24 percent to 44 percent by 2027.
While one of the ECP’s notable goals is to “increase electricity demand on the main grid by 500MW by 2027”, the country’s high-voltage transmission lines for electricity continue to be beset with considerable threats.
Worn down, Uganda’s grid exhibits the dying gasp of an old order. Attempts to have it patched up have been bureaucratically bemired by bouts of corruption in state agencies that are highly episodic in nature.
Bad look
The optics of power infrastructure theft also continue to be infernal. Three Mondays ago, the police—acting on a tip from an informant inside Tembo Steels Ltd—flagged down a Fuso truck in Iganga Town.
“In the truck, there were a lot of transmission tower materials [such as] 85 angle bars and tower bits,” Mr Lawrence Kimbowa, the Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Limited (UETCL) deputy spokesperson, revealed, adding, “The codes on the angle bars were identified as those for the transmission corridor of Bujagali-Tororo power line.”
This was hardly a novel development. The Bujagali-Kakira-Musita-Mayuge transmission corridor alone is estimated to have lost approximately 550,000kg of tower parts in 2021 alone.
Mr Sindronius Okaasai, the junior Energy minister, a fortnight ago sketched a portrait that showed the scale of the impact of such acts of vandalism. Up to 104MW, he revealed, had been “swept off” the national grid due to vandalism.
The affected lines include the 132KV Owen Falls-Lugogo Transmission Line, which vandals destroyed at a site in Kivuvu Village, and the Owen Falls-Mukono North-Mulago Transmission Line vandalised in Nasuuti Village. Both lines were stripped of crucial parts in Mukono District a fortnight ago.
UETCL said the tampering ultimately led to the collapse of four transmission towers, forcing the government to resort to an expensive 50MW Namanve thermal plant as an emergency standby to provide electricity.
In recent months, vandalism has been on the rise, with UETCL reporting that a tower is damaged each day. A sting operation at Kafu in Masindi District this month netted two suspects in possession of 240 transmission tower steel parts culled from the Karuma-Kawanda transmission line.
The assets targeted by vandals such as those in Kafu include pylons, conductors, including transmission infrastructure parts made of steel, aluminium wires, copper wires, transformers and transformer oils, poles, underground cables and related accessories.
Early this year, the Energy ministry said it was engaging its Trade counterpart to cause a ban on scrap metal trade in the country. Despite Mr Okaasai describing the talks as positive, a source at the Trade ministry told this publication that “banning scrap metal trade cannot be an overnight thing.” Our source added that “a deeper multi-sectoral engagement” will secure a breakthrough; although “petition[ing] Parliament” will expedite things.
“If the market is not closed for those buying them (scrap metal industry), they (sellers) will continue vandalising these infrastructures and stealing them,” Mr James Banabe Isingoma, a former director for Energy Resources at the Energy ministry, told this publication, adding, “[The] government has now to step up the vigilance and close the markets of these dealers … Much as the government cannot put security to guard each of the towers, but patrols can be done. We have a lot of idle soldiers in barracks who are not doing anything.”
Lofty goals
UETCL continues to undertake several projects to add to the national grid’s 1700km of high-voltage transmission lines. Its grid development plan for 2018-2040 projects tells increments of about 13,029.43km of transmission lines, 55 additional substations, and 17,229MVA additional transformation capacity.
Evidently, government intends to make investment in energy and mineral development infrastructure the central plank of a trickle-down growth and development plan. It has taken out loans to prop 17 ongoing projects in the energy and mineral development programmes. This has summarily pushed the country’s public debt stock to the Shs80 trillion mark.
The House Committee on National Economy came to the conclusion that while commercial interests stand to directly benefit, there will be a trickle-down effect of capital accumulation.
“The project will directly benefit households, commercial enterprises, including minerals and mining enterprises, public institutions, and industrial parks with access to energy and clean cooking solutions across the country,” the committee stated in a report this week.
Empirical evidence, however, shows that nothing usually trickles down. The gains of the bottom half are rarely memorable, with a K-shaped recovery taking root. Small wonder, experts say, the vast bulk—if not all—culprits red-flagged for vandalising electricity infrastructure are from the bottom half.
Vandalism is but one of many tangibles afflicting Uganda’s 20th Century grid. Mr Michael Taremwa Kananura—the UETCL acting managing director—told this publication that despite being automated and monitored remotely, the grid has “not yet meshed to allow redundancy (more than two) alternative supply routes.” He added: “UETCL also has a small segment of its infrastructure on wooden poles, which are susceptible to vagaries of weather.”
UETCL also has in its inventory thousands of transmission towers whose lattice works of galvanised steel typically range from 50 to 180 feet in height. Since the vast majority of these structures were built in the 1950s, they could do with the proverbial fresh coat of paint. This won’t come on the cheap. In fact, UETCL put the bill of swapping the faltering lattice steel towers with monopoles at just under Shs40b.
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